Harry Potter and the First Ones
by Liselle129
Summary: Sequel to Harry Potter and the Shadow War. Please read that first! Harry and friends find themselves summoned to the future once again, near the climax of the Vorlon Shadow War. Rating for safety. Ch 24: Epilogue. Garibaldi and Bester.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Babylon 5 or Harry Potter.

Author's Note: So, here's what you've all been waiting for…the sequel to Harry Potter and the Shadow War! Please read that first, since I will not be repeating the events of that story, though I will allude to them from time to time. This story begins with the final episode of Season 3 (Z'Ha'Dum) and will continue well into the fourth season. The first four chapters are already written, but I plan to post them once a week in order to give me time to work on the fifth, which has been stalled for quite some time and is still going slowly. Enjoy!

**Sheridan in Trouble**

Professor Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, doing paperwork. It was his least favorite part of being Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he leaned back in his chair, took off his half-moon spectacles, and rubbed his eyes. When he replaced his glasses, he saw a wizened figure in a far corner of the room. Dumbledore stared, taking in the ancient, lined face; the sparkling eyes; and the voluminous robes.

"Lorien?" Dumbledore asked in amazement. "Is that you? It's been a long time."

"Longer than you know," the stranger stated. "I have come to ask you a favor." Lorien stepped aside to reveal an unconscious man wearing a dark blue uniform.

Harry and Ginny sat in the Gryffindor Common Room, playing wizard chess. It had been about three weeks since their adventure on the Babylon 5 space station, which had actually taken place nearly 300 years in the future. Harry was still puzzling over Dumbledore's first assignment in their private lessons. In addition, Harry had chickened out and not actually told his friends about the prophecy yet. He kept meaning to, but he always seemed to find reasons to put it off.

At the moment, Ron and Hermione were at a prefects' meeting, and Harry had done as much homework as he wanted to for the evening. Suddenly, Harry looked across the room and noticed Dean and Seamus in a far corner, talking.

"Er, Ginny, don't take this the wrong way, but shouldn't you be spending your free time with Dean?"

Ginny looked over her shoulder briefly, following Harry's gaze. Then she turned back to him with a half-smile.

"What? Can't I have any other friends?" she asked archly.

"Of course you can," he said evenly. He decided it was wisest not to say any more.

"Well, to tell you the truth, Dean and I broke up. He didn't buy Dumbledore's story about why I was gone last month. If I told him the truth, he'd just think I was making up some elaborate ruse to get away from him or something, so what else could I do?"

"Ginny, I'm sorry." He was, too, for her at least. For himself, however, he was rather glad. Even though he was not yet sure whether he would actually pursue her, it was nice to have her free for him to have that option. Before he could say anything more, a translucent figure appeared between them. It was Delenn, kneeling beside the table they were using.

"Please, you must come," she pleaded with them. "John has gone to Z'Ha'Dum. It was foretold that he would die if he went there! Please."

"What's Z'Ha'Dum?" Harry asked. But Delenn was gone. Harry looked around quickly, but no one else seemed to have noticed anything.

"Well, that was…odd," Ginny commented. She peeked in her knapsack and carefully pulled out the device she'd received from Draal after their visit to Babylon 5. "It's not blinking."

"Yet," Harry responded. He checked his watch. "The prefect meeting should be done soon. Maybe we should swing by and get Ron and Hermione, then go see Dumbledore."

Harry and Ginny practically ran all the way down to the second floor room where the prefects typically met. They found that the meeting was already over. Some of the prefects were still milling about, but Ron and Hermione had left.

"Great," said Harry. "There are a dozen ways back to the tower. Should we just go back and wait for them?"

"Oh, I doubt they were in much of a hurry to return to the Common Room," Ginny answered with a sly smile. "Follow me." She led the way down the corridor and around a turn, where she stopped in front of a tapestry. Somewhat dramatically, she pulled it aside to reveal Harry's best friends, snogging rather enthusiastically. They broke off as the lamplight hit them, Ron turning bright red as he saw the source of the interruption.

Ron and Hermione's relationship had been progressing quite well over the last few weeks. Harry tried to suppress the jealousy he felt at what the two of them were able to share. They had done their best to be considerate of him, so he really couldn't complain. They spent perhaps a little more time in the "library" than before, but they still tried to spend adequate time with him and were generally careful not to be too demonstrative in front of him. Harry was honestly glad that they were happy. He just had moments of self-pity when he wished that he could be similarly occupied. Harry glanced over at Ginny's amused smirk and decided that he definitely did not want to know how she'd guessed the location of the couple.

"Terribly sorry," Harry said sincerely. "But something's come up. We need to go see Dumbledore."

The four hurried to Dumbledore's office, Harry and Ginny trying to give breathless explanations as they went. When Dumbledore's voice permitted them to enter, they practically tumbled inside. Once there, though, they simply stood there, uncertain how to begin.

"I was just about to send for you," Dumbledore informed them curiously. "How did you know?"

"Er, well, we've had a sort of visit," Harry responded.

"Delenn, from the Babylon 5 station in the future, appeared to us," Ginny added.

"Ah, well, as you can see, I've had a bit of a visitation myself," the headmaster replied, gesturing toward the corner behind and to the left of his guests. The four turned as one and gasped when they saw a familiar uniform.

"Captain Sheridan!" Hermione exclaimed, rushing to his side.

"Don't try to touch him," Dumbledore warned. "He is here, and yet he is not. My old friend Lorien asked me to watch over him for a while, until he decides where to be."

"He's alive then?" Ron asked nervously.

"Again, yes and no. He hovers in the immeasurable moment between life and death, trying to determine which way to jump."

"He might die?" Ginny asked in alarm. "But he can't! They need him there!"

"That is not entirely accurate," Dumbledore disagreed gently. "He has already put events into motion. If he dies, someone else will take his place."

"Delenn seemed to be summoning us," Harry finally rejoined the conversation. "Have you spoken to Draal?"

"I contacted him right after Lorien left. I expect that he will call for you soon. In the meantime, I suggest you pack a few items and arrange for your absence. From what Draal said, you will need to remain in his time for several months."

Months? There was a long pause as everyone digested that.

"How long will we be missing here?" Hermione asked.

"About three weeks."

"We have to miss the Halloween feast, then?" Ron said wistfully. Hermione rounded on him.

"How can you think about your stomach at a time like this?"

"I'll just miss it, that's all," Ron retorted defensively.

"I suppose I'd better cancel Quidditch practice for a while," Harry added. "Good thing we just had our first match. The team wouldn't be able to do much with just two chasers and two beaters."

"I've already prepared excuses for you all, to be distributed when you…disappear, as it were," Dumbledore informed them.

"We're going to miss an awful lot of schoolwork," Hermione fretted.

"What are you worried about?" Ginny said tartly. "You've probably got the books all read anyway."

"Yes, I recommend that you bring your schoolbooks with you," Dumbledore acknowledged. "You may find yourself with some 'down time.'"

There seemed to be nothing more to say, so Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione left Dumbledore's office and left to make their preparations.

For the next two days, the four friends went about their business edgily, carrying some basic necessities with them at all times and peering frequently at their temporal devices. Dobby helped them put together some food packages that would last. Harry made sure to keep his invisibility cloak packed. It wouldn't cover all of them, unless they were crouched down quite low, but he thought it might come in handy nonetheless.

At last, the summons came, one evening at dinner. Hermione was putting back a book she'd been perusing during the meal and gasped. She cast significant looks at the others. As arranged, they quickly went to the corridor and found a deserted corner. Harry waited until the other three had pulled their devices out of their bags. Then he reached into his own bag, and when his fingers touched the cold, unfamiliar metal, he felt a sensation of vertigo as Hogwarts dissolved around him.

It was replaced by the ancient workings of the Heart of Epsilon III. The Draal-avatar and Zathras stood waiting for them.

"Excellent. You're here," Draal boomed without introduction. "We must hurry. Sheridan is just about to leave for Z'Ha'Dum." The four teenagers exchanged confused glances.

"I'm sorry," Harry said politely. "I thought he'd already gone. That's what Delenn said."

Now it was Draal's turn to appear confused.

"Delenn? But she won't even know he's gone for a few hours!"

"An image of Delenn came to us," Ginny tried to explain. "We assumed you had helped her send the projection." Draal's eyes took on an unfocused look as he apparently concentrated on something internal.

"Ah, I see," he said at last. "That hasn't happened yet. When she comes to me for help, I will be sure to send her image to a point before you left. Come, come! No time to lose."

Draal then led the way to another part of the planet's interior.

"What is Z'Ha'Dum?" Ron asked.

"The home world of the Shadows."

"What!?!" Hermione practically screeched, coming to a halt. "You're sending us THERE?"

"It's where you're needed," Draal answered mildly. "The ship you'll be taking doesn't have jump capability, and we want to escape the station's notice, so you'll need to sort of tag along with Sheridan's Whitestar when it goes through the gate. Zathras will be your pilot."

The odd, hunched creature had been muttering to himself through this entire conversation but did not seem inclined to say anything aloud. At length, they reached a docking bay containing a large, blocky, rectangular object that looked half rusted.

"That's our ship?" Harry commented doubtfully.

"There are advantages to its looking that way," Draal assured him. "Don't worry; it will take you where you need to go."

"Well, no time like the present," said Ginny brightly. Then she grinned ruefully. "Or the future, as it happens."

"Er, do you have any instructions for us?" Hermione asked then, biting her lip nervously.

"Not really. You'll know what is needed when the time comes. There is one thing, though." Draal turned to Ron. "You will need to host Kosh again for a while. Not immediately, but before you leave. Is that all right?"

"I suppose," Ron responded. "It won't cause the same problem as last time, will it?"

"Oh, no. This should cause you no discomfort whatsoever."

Ron nodded his understanding. Then they all boarded, and Zathras took the controls. Ron and Hermione strapped themselves onto a padded bench running along the wall of the ship, and Harry and Ginny did the same on another bench across from them.

"Will take several hours," Zathras informed them all. "Make comfortable." Then he carefully piloted the ship out of the planet and into the shadow of Babylon 5. From what the others could tell, he stayed under Captain Sheridan's ship after it left the station and continued to hold that position as they went through the activated jumpgate.


	2. Chapter 2: Home of Shadows

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter or to Babylon 5.

Author's Note: Not much to say about this, except that I am using some of my own interpretations of Lorien's interactions with Sheridan. A lot of it is left fairly open, and I take advantage of that.

**Home of Shadows**

After their ship had passed through the jumpgate, the small portholes around them showed only a mottled orangey-red landscape. Harry suddenly realized that he really didn't know what a jumpgate was.

"So, can someone explain to me what jumpgates are?" he asked generally. He didn't expect Ron or Ginny to know anything about it, since they were completely ignorant of most technology, but he thought Hermione might have some idea.

"Well, it's mainly theoretical, at least in our time," she explained, getting into lecture mode. The idea is that you build a gate that sort of tears a hole in space, taking you to another dimension called hyperspace. I gather that's what we're seeing outside. It provides a shortcut through space from one point to another. If we had to travel across these distances directly, it would take years, even at light-speed. Then you have the possible time-dilation effect to worry about."

"Time dilation?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Albert Einstein theorized that, if you were to travel at speeds approaching that of light, time would begin to slow for you. That is, it would feel the same, but when you came back to your starting point, you might find that ten years had passed, even though it might seem like only weeks to you."

"So, if we left earth in our time, on a ship that could go that fast, we might be able to come back at the time of Babylon 5?" Ron wondered, frowning.

"Well, yes, I suppose we could," responded Hermione. "Assuming we could stay away long enough."

They all fell silent at that point. Harry looked around at his friends and decided that now might be a good time to confess the secret he had still not told them. After all, they had several hours with nothing to do. He cleared his throat.

"There's something I think I should tell you all," he said. "I probably should have done it a long time ago, but it took me a while to really grasp it myself." He licked his lips, trying to figure out how to do this.

"What is it, Harry?" Hermione inquired with concern. Her eyes, as well as Ron's and Ginny's, were fixed seriously on him. For some reason, Ginny took his hand. This seemed to give him both comfort and strength, and he gave her a little smile of thanks. When Harry spoke again, though, he found he couldn't look at any of them. Instead, he focused on a point above Hermione's head.

"Last year, after…after the Department of Mysteries, Dumbledore took me to his office. He showed me something there. Something important. You know that prophecy Voldemort was after?" When the others nodded, he went on. "Well, Dumbledore showed it to me. He had the complete memory because he was the person Professor Trelawney told it to. See, he was interviewing her before I was born. He was just about to send her off when she went into a sort of trance and spoke in a different voice." He paused as he tried to remember the exact wording. A few months ago, he was sure those words would be engraved on his brain forever, but now, though he remembered the gist, he couldn't remember the exact quotation.

"It went something like this: 'The one with the power to bring down the Dark Lord will be born before the seventh month dies, born to those who have thrice defied him. The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have a power the Dark Lord knows not. One of them must slay the other, for neither can live while the other survives.'"

There was utter quiet for a moment, except for the faint humming of the engines.

"So let me get this straight," Ron broke the silence. "If you don't kill You-Know-Who, he's going to kill you?"

Harry nodded solemnly.

"Well, you'll just have to kill him, then," said Ginny matter-of-factly. Harry looked at her in amazement. "Don't make the mistake of thinking he's human," Ginny continued at his expression. "He isn't. Don't forget that I had him in my head. Even at 16, he didn't value life at all."

Harry hadn't forgotten, although he usually tried not to think about it. It always made him feel responsible.

"I'm so sorry for that, Ginny," he apologized, not for the first time.

"Oh, stop it. It wasn't your fault."

"But if it hadn't been for me, Mr. Malfoy wouldn't have slipped you that book."

"And if I had taken some time to think about it, I wouldn't have written in it so much."

"I reckon there's enough blame to go around, mate," Ron put in. "If Fred, George, and I had been better brothers, she might not have felt lonely enough to try to find a friend in a magic diary."

"You're absolutely sure the prophecy referred to you?" Hermione weighed in at last, interrupting the festival of guilt.

"That's the funny thing," Harry informed her. "It actually could have been Neville. We were both born at the end of July, and our parents were all members of the Order. The part that makes Dumbledore sure it's me is the part about marking me as his equal. He thinks Voldemort did that when he gave me this." Harry gestured to the scar on his forehead.

"So, when You-Know-Who was trying to prevent the prophecy from happening, he actually fulfilled part of it?" Ron asked. Harry shrugged.

"I guess so."

"Thank you for telling us," Hermione said after another pause. "I don't know if there's anything we can do to help, but you know we will if we can."

Harry nodded silently. He did feel like a tremendous burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He'd followed Dumbledore's advice, and he felt better. Now there was just the matter of the assignment – something to live for. He noticed that he was still holding Ginny's hand. Ron noticed this, too, looking at their clasped hands and then sending a significant glance toward Harry. Ron raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry. Harry gave a half-shrug and looked away, unable to bear the scrutiny. He knew he should probably pull away, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Not yet, anyway.

Eventually, Hermione suggested this might be a time to look through their schoolbooks. Harry wasn't really in the mood, but he pretended to read his Charms text to keep the peace.

Finally, the reddish tapestry outside dissolved, to be replaced by an unfamiliar pattern of stars. Harry couldn't see a planet, but he reasoned that it was probably directly below them.

"Here," Zathras said, coming back into the passenger area. "Quickly. Into pod." He guided them to a tiny escape pod, helped them strap in again, and pressed some buttons on a console at the front. Once this task was complete, he went back past them to the doorway.

"Aren't you coming with us?" demanded Ron.

"No," was the abrupt answer. "Zathras go back soon. Someone else bring others."

"What? Who?" They were all clamoring over each other.

"No time. Trust. Go."

With that, Zathras left them and ejected the pod. From the front window, they could now see a very dark, foreboding planet below. As the cramped vessel followed its programmed trajectory, Harry noticed that a shuttle seemed to be going to the planet from the Whitestar. He shivered with a strange feeling like déjà vu. Whatever was going to happen to the captain would happen soon.

"Not very welcoming, is it?" Ginny commented.

"I don't think it's supposed to be," Harry replied dryly. "I get the feeling they don't encourage visitors."

The pod took them down to the planet's surface, which seemed to be totally barren. Harry felt a twinge from his scar, but it stopped as they entered a crevice and went underground. Their descent felt like it took ages, but at last they landed, none too gently. The kids simply sat there for a minute or two, still feeling at a loss.

"I think this is where we get off," Ron said in an attempt to lighten the tone.

"Right," Hermione agreed, adopting a businesslike attitude. "Whatever we're supposed to do, we have to find it in here."

They exited into a nearly featureless rock tunnel. There was dim light, but it was impossible to distinguish a source.

"_Lumos_," muttered Harry as he drew his wand. The tunnel was just large enough for the escape pod, but it became much narrower ahead and appeared to branch off in different directions.

"How are we supposed to figure out which way to go?" Ginny asked in a frustrated tone.

"Maybe we just trust to destiny to put us in the right place at the right time?" Harry guessed.

"I've never put much faith in destiny," Hermione said. "Technology has brought us this far; maybe magic will have to do the rest."

She took her wand out and rested it on her palm so that it could spin like the needle of a compass. She said "_Vectore Captain Sheridan._" The wand shook a little like it was trying to lift up, then settled on a direction slightly to their right. The group followed the wand for a while, Hermione stopping periodically to check their bearing. They turned a corner just in time to see an impossibly bright flash of light. They turned away quickly, but not soon enough for Harry to avoid the afterimages behind his eyelids. Understanding that this must signify something important, the teens scarcely exchanged a glance before almost running to the source. Harry raised his wand to see a roughly circular hole that seemed to go straight up through the rock. He reasoned that it must go all the way up to the city above them.

Suddenly, Harry saw what looked like a human figure falling down the hole.

"_Wingardium leviosa!_" shouted three voices in unison, and the body swung drunkenly, hitting the side of the pit. Harry winced.

"Let me do it!" Hermione hissed. Ron complied immediately, ending the spell on his wand. Harry did the same just a beat later. He saw that only Ginny had not reacted as they had, probably because she was not yet really used to working with them. However, she did have her wand out. Harry raised an eyebrow at her questioningly.

"I cast a Featherbed Charm at the bottom," she explained, shrugging. Harry liked her novel way of thinking. Of course, depending how far the person – probably Sheridan – had fallen, the feather landing alone might not have been enough to cushion his fall. In any case, Hermione was bringing the man to rest on the ground. As the four approached, they saw that it was, in fact, Captain Sheridan.

"What happened up there?" Ron wondered.

"It looked like some kind of explosion," Harry said, peering upward. He couldn't see anything more than a few yards up, though. He heard faint sounds carrying through the rock and pressed his ear to it to see if there was any more he could pick up. He felt some vibrations and caught some clicking noises, but he couldn't make any sense out of it and gave up.

"So what do we do now?" Ron asked generally.

"I guess we wait," Hermione answered, settling herself beside the captain and checking him over as best she could. Harry came up beside her. Sheridan looked exactly as they had seen him in Dumbledore's office, only that hadn't happened yet. Well, it had for them, but not for him. Harry frowned and vowed to stop thinking about the paradoxes of time travel.

"So we did this to him?" Ginny inquired, as though she were also trying to wrap her head around everything.

"Well, yes and no," Hermione told her, sounding a little like Dumbledore. "For whatever reason, he would have jumped whether we were here or not. But if we hadn't been, he'd have had an unchecked fall for however deep this hole is."

"Two miles," said a strange voice behind them, causing everyone to turn quickly.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, holding his wand in front of him.

"Who are you?" the stranger responded mildly. It stepped a little closer, allowing Harry to see it (him?) more clearly. The individual was humanoid in appearance, with two visible arms. The legs were mostly concealed under the long robe he wore. His head was bald and bulbous at the top, surrounded by a small sort of crown with a red gem in the middle of the forehead. He had a long, heavily lined face with a very flat nose and a white beard, and his dark eyes glittered in the magic light.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, lowering his wand slightly. "These are my friends. We're from Earth."

"Indeed?" the stranger commented, studying each of them in turn. Then he swept by Harry to evaluate Captain Sheridan. "Why are you here?"

"We're hoping someone will tell us that," Ron muttered.

"That's Captain Sheridan," Ginny explained to the stranger. "We're not sure why he was here, either."

"I think I know that," the alien sighed. Then he touched Sheridan and tilted his head as though listening to something. "And he's not alone. There's a Vorlon inside him."

"Kosh!" Ron exclaimed. He also bent and touched Sheridan. "Yeah, I feel something sort of familiar."

"You know this Vorlon?" The newcomer seemed surprised.

"It's a long story."

"Well, we're likely to have plenty of time. My name is Lorien. Your wands remind me of someone I once knew."

"Dumbledore!" Hermione announced. "You know Albus Dumbledore. But how?"

"I visited Earth about 350 years ago," Lorien answered. "Perhaps a better question is, how do you know him? Even wizards of your species don't live that long."

"Unless you count Nicolas Flamel," Harry put in.

"Yes, I met him as well," Lorien mused. "He'd found a secret to immortality. Very interesting."

"Is that how you've lived so long?" Ginny wondered. Lorien smiled gently at her.

"No. My people were naturally immortal. That is, we have no natural limits on our life spans. I was already an old man by the time any kind of life existed on your planet."

Harry tried to think about how many years that would be and grew dizzy with the concept. Hermione seemed to be similarly struggling with it. Ron and Ginny, not having experienced Muggle science classes, didn't really seem concerned.

"We're from Earth's past," Ron said, finally answering the question posed some time ago.

"We saw Sheridan in Dumbledore's office before we left," Hermione added. "He said an old friend had paid him a visit."

"That is an excellent idea," Lorien said. "When are you from?" When they told him, he touched Sheridan and closed his eyes, growing very still. He stayed that way for a minute or two. At last, he rose and faced them again, seating himself on a protruding rock. Sheridan flickered, as though he were both there and not there at the same time.

"He should be safe now," Lorien declared. "All we have to do is wait."

"What are we waiting for?" Harry asked.

"For John Sheridan to find a reason to live."

--

Author's Note: The idea of using the levitation charm to aid Sheridan was my husband's. I know this probably seems like it's starting really slowly, but bear with me. It's likely to be a much longer story than the last one.

Review responses:

SuperTD: I know they didn't do all that much on the planet, but it's a way to tie them in that doesn't interfere too much with what actually happened.

Hilary Weston: I've heard people call the special uniforms black, but they always looked navy to me, so I'm using my interpretation. Sorry.

Faerylark: Me too!

Ranger Aurora: No, Kosh fights the other Kosh in a few episodes. He's still in Sheridan's head at this point, which is part of the reason he lived, if I understood all that correctly.


	3. Chapter 3: Storytelling

Additional disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Babylon 5 or Harry Potter.

Author's Note: This is mostly an explanatory chapter, and a lot of it is for those readers who might not be Babylon 5 fans. However, I hope it also helps to put things into context for everyone. Everything with Lorien in the series is open to interpretation, so this is just mine.

**Storytelling**

Harry and his friends introduced themselves and selected Hermione to tell their story. She paused for a moment to order her thoughts.

"All right, I'll try to explain things in terms of what I think happened in this timeline, since things happened in a different order for us," she began. "We came to Babylon 5 before, a few weeks ago. At least, a few weeks ago for us. I can't really tell how much time might have passed here. We helped defeat a Shadow, but I have a feeling the main reason we were there was to introduce us to people, in preparation for when we were needed again." She proceeded to give an abridged account of their prior experiences with the residents of Babylon 5. She then moved on to the more recent events.

"Professor Dumbledore saw something in his office (you, I guess, but I'll get to that) that led him to contact Draal. Draal confirmed that we were due to come back, so he summoned us. Captain Sheridan was just leaving for Z'Ha'Dum, and Draal packed us into a ship with a pilot to ride along in his shadow. A few hours after we left, Ambassador Delenn of Minbar found out about Sheridan's trip, I don't know how. Distraught, she contacted Draal to help her get a message to us.

"Draal complied, projecting an image of her, along with a message, to our time. However, since he knew we were actually already with Sheridan, he made sure the message was sent to a time prior to our leaving. Harry and Ginny were the ones that happened to receive it. Apparently, no one else is supposed to know we're here, at least not yet.

"So we arrived at this planet, landed in an escape pod, and wandered around for a while trying to figure out what we were supposed to do. Eventually, we found this place and Sheridan and did what we could for him. Then you found us, and I guess you must have just appeared to Dumbledore at about the same time Delenn was talking to Harry and Ginny."

Hermione fell silent.

"Sounds kind of circular, doesn't it?" Ginny asked. "We were alerted to the fact that we were needed by events that didn't actually happen until after we got here."

"I hate time travel," Harry said, sighing. "It does sort of make sense, though. Our whole lives are in the past compared to now, so it really doesn't matter when things happened."

"Well, I reckon that catches us up," Ron put in. He turned to Lorien. "So, what's your story?" Lorien leaned back and regarded each in turn. Harry had the feeling the alien could see right through him.

"My people were the first sentient race in the universe, as far as we know," Lorien spoke at last. "As I said, we were naturally immortal. However, we could die of illness, accidents, or by design."

"Design?" Ron interrupted.

"He means murder," Hermione explained in a whisper. Ron made an "o" with his lips and said no more.

"Exactly," Lorien agreed. "Anyway, our civilization advanced, and we began traveling the universe. Eventually, we found other evolved life forms, the ones humans and the other younger races call 'First Ones.' Are you familiar with some of these?"

"If you mean Vorlons and Shadows, then we know a little about them," Ginny responded. Lorien nodded.

"Those are the two races who decided to remain involved. Many of the First Ones have already passed beyond the rim. Others simply reside in unpopulated parts of the galaxy, spending their time in quiet contemplation."

"Beyond the rim?" Harry queried curiously.

"It's a little hard to explain. Essentially, it's the edge of the galaxy. I am the last of my kind. The rest all died from one cause or another."

"So, what do you do?" Hermione asked.

"I observe, mainly. I stay here most of the time, but I travel a little."

"Nice place you got here," Ron commented sarcastically. Lorien smiled faintly.

"It did not always look this way," he answered, and he would say no more about it.

"And the others?" Ginny wondered. "The Vorlons and Shadows, what do they do?"

"Ah, yes. That is the real story. They chose to stay behind to guide the younger races. This seemed like a reasonable idea at the time, but they developed radically different methods of helping. The Vorlons value order above all else. They believed the best way to assist was to enforce their own ideal, make others after their own image, you might say. The Shadows, on the other hand, sought to bring about chaos. They noticed that the greatest technological advances occurred in times of upheaval, so they decided to encourage this by sowing the seeds of war at intervals."

"So that's what's happening now," Harry realized. "The Vorlons stick around all the time, whispering in ears. Shadows crawl out of their hole about once every 1,000 years to stir up trouble."

"Exactly," Lorien agreed, nodding. "Eventually, both races forgot their original purpose and began competing over the destiny of the younger races. They don't dare face each other directly, for fear that it would tear the universe apart. Instead, they use proxies to further their causes. Among other things, Vorlons adjusted the genetic makeup of individuals on some worlds, creating telepaths."

"That's where telepaths came from?" Hermione said, looking shocked. "Vorlons made them? Why aren't there any in our time?"

"The Vorlons would say that Earth was not yet ready to join this conflict," Lorien replied. "However, the Shadows showed an interest some time ago, so it stands to reason that the Vorlons would, also. I happen to know that there was an earlier experiment, one that did not turn out exactly how the Vorlons expected." Lorien looked at each of them in turn, and Harry felt his eyes widen in shock as he began to understand.

"It's us!" Ginny exclaimed with a mixture of fear and amazement. "The Vorlons created wizards and witches!"

"Only our DNA did something they didn't expect it to," Harry put in. "It caused a totally new mutation."

"Of course," Hermione mused. "That explains why Vorlons are mentioned in some of our books. They must have stopped in from time to time to check on us. Maybe they wanted to see if we'd eventually turn into the telepaths they were trying to make."

"There were other reasons, as well," Lorien added to her conclusions. "The Vorlons do not generally allow outsiders to know this, but they do not always agree. There are different factions on some issues. There were those who wanted to destroy all of your kind and start over. Others thought they might learn from this error."

"We could have been used as weapons, too," Harry thought. "They might have been looking at that possibility."

"Indeed they were," Lorien informed them. "However, they feared you would be too powerful. You have some abilities even they lack. There isn't much point in having a weapon you can't control. In the end, they compromised. Vorlons manipulated events on your world to ensure that witches and wizards would live apart from the rest of the population."

"The Vorlons caused the panic of the witch-hunting days?" Hermione almost shrieked.

"You mean, these aliens modified us, made us what we are, then when it turned out they'd messed up, they tried to sweep it all under the rug?" Ginny asked. She sounded more astonished than angry. Harry frowned, remembering some things he'd read while researching an essay for school.

"The panic didn't actually kill any real witches, but a lot of innocent Muggles died," he commented, beginning to get a little angry himself. "Who do these…things think they are?"

"It's chess," said Ron quietly. He had been silent through the whole of these revelations. Now he wore an expression that was a mixture of dawning comprehension and faint illness. Hermione took his hand. He squeezed hers gently, then released it and stood up.

"I can see it now," he went on, beginning to pace around the cave. "A great, cosmic chess game. Imagine two players facing each other across a board the size of the galaxy, one black and one white. You can't say good and evil because it's not that simple. The black king represents chaos, and the white king is order. The other pieces in the king's row are individuals selected by each side to fight this war for them."

"So you're saying Sheridan's the queen?" Ginny questioned him. Ron looked at her as though trying to determine whether she was making fun of him. When she put it that way, it did sound a little silly, though Harry could sense that this was deadly serious. Apparently satisfied by whatever he saw in her face, Ron answered her question.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. He may think he is, but I think it's more likely that Delenn is the queen. Half Minbari and half human, she probably has more moves open to her. I also suspect she knows a lot more than she tells anyone, including him." Ron indicated the body lying on the ground.

"It is often said that a Minbari never tells anyone the whole truth," Lorien put in, though he did not sound at all judgmental. He was merely stating a fact. Ron acknowledged this with a nod and continued.

"More likely, Sheridan's a knight. Kind of limited in the paths he can choose, but capable of moving in unique and unexpected ways. That Morden person we saw on the station is probably a key piece on the other side, a bishop maybe. Of course, there will be others we don't know about. The pawns are everyone else in the younger races. Who thinks twice about sacrificing a pawn? No one.

"But it goes even further than that. _None_ of the pieces mean anything to the players, any more than my wizard chess set back home means to me. It's the game that's important. Any piece, other than the king, can be sacrificed if you think it will win the game for you."

There was silence as everyone took in this analogy. Ron looked over to Lorien.

"Am I about right?" he asked.

"Yes, you have made a surprisingly acute observation," Lorien acknowledged. "I have played this wizard's chess with Albus, and I see what you mean."

"But you cared about Harry and me when we were playing that big chess game at Hogwarts," Hermione put in.

"Of course! You're my friends!" Ron seemed offended at the suggestion that he could have felt otherwise. "That made the game even harder because I had to make sure none of us got…captured." Harry remembered what "captured" had meant in that case, and it was very frightening.

"In the end, you sacrificed yourself to let us go on," Hermione reminded Ron, standing and looking up at him.

"There was no other way," he muttered, not looking directly at her. Hermione slid her arms under his, and Ron automatically embraced her as well.

"Have I told you recently that I love you?" Hermione asked him softly.

"Earlier today, I think," Ron answered. "But I don't mind hearing it again." Taking his cue, he bent down to meet her mouth with his. Harry politely averted his gaze. Unfortunately, he set his eyes on Ginny, which only made him think how much he'd like to be similarly occupied with her. Feeling a flush creep across his cheeks, he looked down.

"That's another disagreement, isn't it?" Ron said a little while later. Harry looked up to see that his friend seemed to have received another revelation. "Some of the Vorlons _do_ get attached to the pieces and might even work against the others to save them."

"Again, you are very astute," Lorien said, his expression now unreadable. "I believe that is what happened with this one, though it his hard to communicate with him while his host is unconscious." He indicated Captain Sheridan. Hermione was now catching on, as well.

"So Kosh, the real Kosh, sacrificed himself for Sheridan?" she asked.

"What do you mean, 'the real Kosh?'" Harry demanded.

"Remember what we heard Captain Sheridan say to Delenn, Harry?" Ginny answered him. "Something about the new Kosh."

"Oh right, the new ambassador took the name of the prior one to cover up the murder, right?" Harry recalled.

"Did he?" Lorien said rhetorically. "Yes, that would fit with the Vorlon attempts to create a unified front to others. In answer to Hermione's question, I don't know for certain. I only suspect that Kosh may have sacrificed himself for Sheridan, or maybe for more than that. In any case, he got involved to a degree that his people would not all have approved."

"The Shadows must have come after him because of something he did for Sheridan!" Harry exclaimed, starting to piece things together. "They probably felt like he broke the rules of their 'game.'"

"That means that the new Kosh is an unknown quantity," Hermione mused, leaning against Ron as if reluctant to leave his side now. "He could even be dangerous. There's no way of knowing what side he's on."

"There's no point in worrying about that now," Ginny pointed out. "That's all back at the station, and there will be time for it later. At the moment, we need to figure out what to do about Sheridan and how to get back to the station, as well as find out what we've missed."

"We cannot go anywhere while Sheridan is in this condition," Lorien agreed. "However, it could take some time for him to be ready. I may be able to help him, but he must make some decisions and discoveries first."

"How is he supposed to do that while unconscious?" Harry asked in genuine confusion. Lorien gave another of his mild smiles.

"I can speak to him in his mind," he said simply. "You might say it's one of the gifts of my people."

"How long is this likely to take?" Hermione inquired.

"It's difficult to say, but several weeks would not be out of the question."

"Several weeks!" Ron repeated agitatedly. "We don't have enough food to last us that long! And it doesn't look like it's easy to come by around here."

"Indeed," Lorien's tone remained mild. "I can place you all into a kind of hibernation until this is over. As for transportation, I have a ship here."

Harry looked at his friends and saw the same questions on their faces that were running through his own mind: how did they know Lorien could do what he said, and would he revive them when the time came?

"You will have to trust me," Lorien told them, as if he could read their minds. Harry regarded him for a long moment before coming to a decision. Harry instinctively knew that the others would accept whatever he said, so he took it upon himself to answer for all of them.

"All right. We'll do it."

Lorien asked them to lie down at the edge of the cavern opposite to where Captain Sheridan lay. Wands were stashed away and other belongings arranged nearby. Lorien touched them each in turn, and they seemed to fall into a kind of sleep. Harry was last, and after Lorien placed his hand on Harry's chest, the world dissolved before his eyes, and he knew no more for quite some time.

--

Author's Note: The next one will skip a lot of time. For those of you who are familiar with the show and remember Season 4, the first four episodes deal mainly with what is happening back on Babylon 5 before Sheridan gets back there. It takes about two weeks, and it would be really boring if I just had everyone sitting around in a cave swapping stories for that long.

Review responses:

Faerylark: Well, Harry's on the right track. Maybe just observing Sheridan will be enough.


	4. Chapter 4: Departure

Additional disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Babylon 5.

Author's Note: Yay, we're in season 4 now! I hope this chapter is a little clearer about what's going on, but I won't make any promises.

**Departure**

"_It was the year of fire…the year of destruction…the year we took back what was ours. It was the year of rebirth…the year of great sadness…the year of pain…and the year of joy. It was a new age. It was the end of history. It was the year everything changed. The year is 2261. The place: Babylon 5."_

-- Introduction to Babylon 5 Season 4

Harry awoke to a light touch on his chest. He was instantly alert and sat up quickly. As he had been the last to be put to sleep, he saw that he was also the last to be brought back. Almost immediately, Harry noticed that Sheridan was sitting up. His wounds were mostly healed, and he had a light blanket wrapped around him.

"Captain Sheridan!" Hermione exclaimed. "Er…how are you?" The captain tossed her a sardonic look.

"I've just come back from the dead," he answered dryly. "How _should_ I be?"

"You actually died?" Harry wanted to know.

"It was necessary for him to cross over before I could help him," Lorien explained. "I was able to transfer some of my life force to him, but only after he let go of the thread connecting him to the life he had."

"Well, we've all come close to dying," Ron put in. "How many times have you been nearly killed, Harry?"

Harry considered the question. Voldemort had tried to kill him as a baby, then again during the Sorcerer's Stone incident, the basilisk nearly got him in the Chamber of Secrets, and there had been the duel after the Triwizard Tournament. He wasn't sure if he could count last year's fiasco in the Department of Mysteries.

"At least four," he decided at last. "If you don't count rogue bludgers, the Whomping Willow, or random Death Eater attacks." Sheridan stared at him.

"You have had an interesting life, haven't you?" Sheridan commented.

"I believe there is a Chinese curse that wishes you an interesting life," Ginny responded, speaking for the first time.

"None of us have really died, though," Hermione broke in.

"But Voldemort should have," Harry said grimly. "Nobody seems to understand why he didn't."

"Do you remember anything about it?" Ron asked Sheridan.

"Not really. I just remember Lorien asking me some questions, and needing to find something to live for. Then I woke up here."

"I take it you found something, then?" Ginny asked in a manner that suggested she didn't really expect an answer. Hermione, however, was curious.

"What was it?" she inquired eagerly. "Winning the war? Telling everyone what you've learned about the Shadows?" Sheridan shook his head.

"Delenn," he and Harry said at the same time. Sheridan looked up sharply and met Harry's gaze. He didn't speak, but something passed between them, and the captain nodded solemnly. Harry looked away to find that his friends were all staring at him. He blushed in embarrassment but said nothing to answer the questions in their eyes.

"We can leave now, can't we?" Harry asked, to change the subject. "Go back to Babylon 5?"

"There is nothing to prevent us," Lorien answered him.

"How do we get out of here?" Ron wondered.

"I have a ship," Lorien replied calmly. Now it was his turn to receive the stares of Harry and his companions. "I'm not a prisoner here. I come and go as I please."

"Do you think you're ready?" Hermione turned to the captain with concern.

"I think so," he said, standing up slowly. "I'm a little stiff, but I'll live." Then he seemed to realize what he'd said and smiled ruefully.

"You're going to cause quite a stir when you get back, you know," Lorien commented.

"I know. 'No one returns from Z'Ha'Dum,'" Sheridan recited with the air of a man who has heard a phrase at least once too often.

Lorien led them through winding tunnels until they reached a vast cavern. In the middle of it sat what Harry assumed was Lorien's ship. It looked kind of like a large, flat fish, with fins sticking straight out to either side. Even in the gloom, the vessel's colors seemed to shift through a rainbow of hues, defying the eye's ability to define them. The alien pressed some invisible controls on the side, causing a door to open and a ramp to extend to it.

"Wow, it's like Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Hermione murmured in awe. Harry glanced at her, amused.

"I never would have guessed you for a science fiction fan," he teased her.

"I like a wide variety of things," she sniffed in response. "Besides, I think _everyone's_ seen that film." Then, seeing the perplexed expressions Ron and Ginny were wearing, she amended, "Well, all Muggles, anyway."

"Muggles?" Sheridan asked for clarification, eyebrow raised.

"Non-magic folk," Ginny explained. "It's just what we call people who can't do magic."

"Except if they were born to magic parents," Ron put in. "Then they're Squibs."

"People like me, in other words," Sheridan said. "What telepaths would call 'normals.'"

"I suppose," Hermione answered. "It isn't meant to be derogatory, really. I mean, my parents are Muggles."

"Well, I guess most people wouldn't mind being called normal, either," Sheridan commented. "It's just the _way_ some of them say it."

Sheridan's brow was furrowed, and his mouth was set in a hard line. Clearly, there was some history here that Harry and the others were not aware of. They didn't know much about telepaths, and they'd only met the one Sheridan himself had called in to test them before. Harry exchanged a glance with the others as they boarded the ship. It was apparent that Lorien had not explained to Sheridan that the four kids were actually the result of a failed telepath experiment. Suddenly, Harry found something incredibly funny. He held the others back for a moment to share it with them.

"I wonder if Malfoy and his kind would be so proud of being 'pureblood' if they knew the truth," he whispered, grinning. Ron and Ginny caught the joke right away, and even Hermione smiled broadly.

"Oh, how I wish I could tell him," she said wistfully. "I can just imagine saying something like, 'Yeah? Well, it just means you have two failed experiments for parents!'"

"Hey!" Ron returned, though he sounded good-natured enough. "That's true of me and Ginny, too, you know. Not to mention our brothers."

"Yeah, but you've never been stuck-up about it," Harry pointed out. Then he nudged them back in the direction of the ship. "I think we'd better go."

As they entered the strange vessel, soft lights came up. The inside of the ship was incredible, momentarily displacing any other thoughts. The walls were completely smooth, with no evidence of seams anywhere. A circular area towards the front had an array of completely unintelligible controls. Lorien walked along the perimeter, muttering words in a strange tongue. The walls seemed to respond to what he wanted, forming seats and safety restraints. After everyone was seated for takeoff, Ginny broke the silence.

"We were supposed to be telepaths," she said softly. Captain Sheridan turned to her sharply. In the light of the ship, Harry could see that Sheridan's hair had begun to turn gray. That seemed awfully fast, but he supposed that being dead, even for a short time, could take a lot out of a person. Ginny and Hermione, with occasional interjections from the boys, told him what they had learned about their origins.

"Very interesting," he said when they were finished. "This could be useful information. Can you read minds at all?"

"There are some spells we can use to do it," Harry felt obliged to take up this portion, since he had some experience with Occlumency and Legilimency. "We have to have eye contact, though, and some are better than others at using it. Besides, there are techniques we can learn to protect our minds."

"Really," Sheridan stated thoughtfully, leaning forward in keen interest. "Can you do that? Protect your mind from being read, I mean."

"I've had a little training," Harry admitted. "I'm not very good at it. I don't think I could keep out anyone who really wanted to get in. And it doesn't work at all when I'm asleep."

"Even so, you might be able to resist a passive scan," Sheridan leaned back again, eyes upward as he considered. "Yes, that could be very useful."

Everyone sat in silence for a while as Lorien maneuvered the ship out of the planet and into hyperspace. When the course was set, he came back to speak with the others.

"Have you thought about how you will present yourself on your return?" he addressed Sheridan. "Are we planning to just walk through the front door, so to speak?" Sheridan mulled this over, arms crossed.

"How long have I been gone?"

"More than two weeks, in Earth terms."

Two weeks! Even though Lorien had told them to expect that, Harry was still surprised. To him, it was as though he merely had a good night's sleep, which, admittedly, was unusual enough for him.

"Two weeks!" Sheridan echoed Harry's thoughts. "So they'll think I'm…"

"You were," Lorien reminded him. The captain nodded, conceding the point.

"I have all the codes we need to come through the gate and dock at the station," Sheridan decided. "So we'll be coming in the front door unannounced, with a key. Like we belong there."

"Very good. What are you going to tell them about me?"

"Not much, at least at first. I have to figure out what's going on before I decide on much. Do you have somewhere I could clean up before we get there?"

"Of course." Lorien led Sheridan to another part of the ship, leaving the kids feeling quite left out.

"What are _we_ going to do when we get there?" Hermione fretted. "And how will we explain how we got to Z'Ha'Dum?"

"_We_ aren't," Ginny told her firmly. "This is the captain's show."

"She's right," Ron agreed. "Let him say what he wants. I doubt anyone even knows how we left the last time."

"And Draal didn't really seem to want anyone to know how much he's involved," Harry added.

"Exactly," Ginny said.

"Well, I suppose we are still quite a mystery to everyone there," Hermione conceded.

When Captain Sheridan came back, looking nearly as fit as the first time they'd met him, the teenagers addressed the question of what he wanted them to do when they got back to the station.

"I'd like to keep you close," he mused. "But I don't know whether I'll want to draw attention to you right away."

"You're coming back from the dead with an alien nobody's ever seen," Ron challenged. "Who's going to notice four kids?"

"The three of us are all right," Hermione pointed out, indicating Harry, Ginny, and herself. "We might be able to blend into the background, but you happen to be a six-foot-tall redhead, in case you'd forgotten. _Someone's _bound to notice you." They had all taken their school robes off and packed them, so their everyday clothing did look fairly ordinary, though it would still not quite match with the fashion of the future.

"She has a point," Sheridan agreed.

"I did bring my invisibility cloak --" Harry began.

"Excuse me, what?" interrupted Sheridan.

"Invisibility cloak," Harry answered, pulling it out of his bag. "It was my father's. It's not large enough to cover all of us, and it will only just do three, especially if Ron's one of them."

Noting that Captain Sheridan seemed disbelieving, Harry realized he would have to demonstrate. Therefore, he obligingly threw the cloak over himself, giving a satisfactory grin when he heard the astonished gasp. He removed it again.

"How does that work?" Sheridan wondered.

"Magic!" all four sorcerers replied in unison. Sheridan rolled his eyes.

"Of course," he said.

"Well, if Ron's the conspicuous one, just have him wear the cloak, and the rest of us will huddle behind these two," Ginny suggested. That seemed like a good plan, at least until they had a better idea of what they would be walking into, so they all agreed to it. Eventually, Hermione broached the subject of why Sheridan had gone there in the first place. The captain told his story, leaving all four teens taking their turn at staring at him, dumfounded.

"So the wife you thought was dead years ago showed up working with the Shadows?" Hermione requested clarification.

"Not exactly," Sheridan corrected. "It was her body, but they had altered her and forcibly put her in one of their ships. They use living beings to interface with them, giving their vessels a kind of intelligence. Once that happens, though, you're never the same. The Anna I loved was gone long ago. She's probably totally dead now. The Whitestar must have dropped almost on top of her."

According to his story, after his meeting with the Shadow representatives (which included Morden, the man they'd seen on Babylon 5 before), Sheridan had tried to run. Out of options, he'd remotely summoned his Whitestar to come crashing down to the planet, loaded with nuclear weapons.

"Well, that explains the big flash we saw," Harry said. "Are we in any danger from the radiation?"

Ron and Ginny were looking at him with identical blank stares.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he fairly shouted. "You don't even know about nuclear bombs?"

"The Cold War?" Hermione supplied. The Weasley siblings shook their heads helplessly.

"The radiation shouldn't be an issue," Lorien offered. "The rock there is very thick and lined with heavy metals that provide considerable shielding."

During the rest of their journey, Captain Sheridan questioned the teen wizards and witches closely, asking about some of the spells they could do and sometimes asking for demonstrations. By the time they went through the jumpgate, probably causing something of an uproar at the station, the captain had a shrewd, calculating expression that worried Harry, just a little.

--

Author's Note: I confess that I am still struggling with Chapter 5. It's about half done. I think I need to watch the first one or two episodes of the season again to figure out exactly how what I'm writing might fit in.

Faerylark: I'd say the idea that Vorlons accidentally made some humans into magical creatures but that magic already existed in the world is closer to what I was thinking. There will be interaction between the wizards and Vorlons, but I don't want to say any more than that.

Ranger Aurora: I'm sorry. I hope it gets clearer, but I felt like I had to do a lot of setup on this one.


	5. Chapter 5: Arrival

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: This chapter addresses the return of Sheridan to the station, as it occurred in Episode 3 of Season 4, The Summons.

**Arrival**

Lorien's ship arrived at Babylon 5, but Hermione Hermione and the others couldn't really see what was going on. They could only imagine the chaos that might be occurring on the station as an unfamiliar vessel entered using the correct codes. As agreed, Ron donned the invisibility cloak, and everyone exited the ship and crowded into a boxy conveyance that reminded Hermione of a lift.

They lowered to the floor of the docking bay, and the door opened to reveal a complete security team waiting for them, weapons drawn. Hermione huddled with Ginny and Harry behind Lorien and Sheridan.

"I'll be damned," spoke a familiar voice. Hermione peeked around to see Chief Garibaldi, looking a little the worse for wear. She also recognized Garibaldi's right-hand man, Zack Allan. It was nice to see familiar faces, no matter what they were doing. Zack signaled everyone to stand down as he lowered his weapon.

"Captain," he said in surprise. "We thought…you were dead."

"It's a long story," Sheridan told him, obviously unwilling to get into a discussion of his resurrection at the moment. "What's going on?" Another security person stepped forward, having just finished listening to the device affixed to his hand.

"Sir, there appears to be a rather large gathering in the Zocalo."

"That's probably where I should go, then," Sheridan nodded to the man and swept past everybody, Lorien and the kids following in his wake. "I know the way." Hermione took in the dumbfounded stares of the crew members but had time for only an apologetic shrug at Zack as she struggled to keep up with the captain's long stride.

Soon enough, they arrived at one of the entrances to the Zocalo. Hermione had last seen it as a bustling center of commerce, but now it was simply packed with humans and aliens. All of their attention was focused on a metal balcony about a story over their head, where someone was talking.

Sheridan surreptitiously climbed a flight of stairs, and his companions followed like sheep. When he reached the balcony, the room gradually fell silent. The last to notice was the alien who'd been speaking, and Hermione now saw that there were a couple of other aliens with him. Judging from the fragments she'd heard, they had been trying to talk everyone out of fighting against the Shadows.

"We heard you were dead," the alien stammered nervously. Sheridan turned to his now captive audience.

"I was," he answered simply. "But I'm better now." Hermione resisted the urge to laugh. It really shouldn't have been funny but somehow, it was. Hermione, Harry, and Ginny hung back, using Lorien for cover. Hermione wasn't sure exactly where Ron was until she felt something brush her hand. She wished she could just hold his hand, but that sort of thing would have to wait.

Sheridan went on to give a passionate speech, giving hope to everyone by proving that he had survived the Shadows and even killed many of them. He encouraged them not to give up the fight and told them that, working together, they could prevail. Hermione could feel the full force of the charisma that had brought him this far. She looked over at Harry, wondering if he could command that kind of audience. She was pretty sure he had the potential; he'd shown some of it when leading Dumbledore's Army.

"Can I count on you?" Sheridan concluded his request. There was a mild response from the listeners.

"Can I count on you?" Sheridan repeated, more forcefully, raising his hands imploringly. "Will you stand together?" At this, there was loud cheering. Hermione, however, was distracted by Delenn moving slowly toward Sheridan. Hermione and the others stood back to allow her through, but Delenn didn't even seem to notice them, her eyes fixed on the captain. Hermione strained a little to hear their exchange.

"I thought I'd never see you again," said Delenn softly.

"I'll never leave you, Delenn," he replied. "Not even if the whole universe stood between us." Hermione couldn't completely suppress a sigh at that. It was just so…beautiful. She glanced over at Ginny to see if she had heard it, too. Ginny gave her a half-shrug, seeming a little amused at Hermione's reaction, but Hermione guessed that the younger girl wasn't completely unaffected. This was confirmed when Ginny cast a furtive glance at Harry. Hermione smiled a little to herself. If the opportunity presented itself, maybe it was her turn to play matchmaker.

Somewhat surprisingly, all seven of them (Delenn, Sheridan, Lorien, and the four kids) were able to slip away as the excited babbling continued behind them. Hermione attributed it to the general sense of awe probably being experienced by everyone at seeing the dead walk again.

Of course, not everyone was held back. Zack and Garibaldi quickly caught up to them while Delenn was trying to briefly update Sheridan on what had been happening in his absence. Sheridan decided that he needed to give a report to the most interested parties as soon as possible. He sent for Lennier, Dr. Franklin (who had apparently resumed his former post as chief medical officer), Commander Ivanova, Marcus, and Lyta Alexander. Zack returned to his security duties.

As the initial group filed into a conference room and began waiting for the rest, Hermione exchanged glances with Harry and Ginny. No one had told them what to do, and Ron was still stuck under the Invisibility Cloak. Delenn took notice of them first.

"I'm so glad you came," Delenn told them. "But how did you get to John?"

"Er, well, it's sort of hard to explain, but Draal…arranged it," Harry tried to answer her without giving too much of Draal's role away.

"Isn't one of you missing?" Delenn frowned, scanning over them.

"Ron, I think you can take the cloak off, now," Sheridan addressed empty space near the other three. Ron was speedily revealed, and he gave the wondrous garment back to Harry. "Everyone here either knows or needs to know who you are." Dr. Franklin was brought up to speed as others began to arrive.

Ivanova, Marcus, and Lyta entered together, and Hermione was mildly amused that Ivanova greeted Sheridan with a hug. She might call him "captain" and observe perfect military protocol at most times, but there was clearly some genuine affection there.

Despite the captain's assurances, Hermione and the others seated themselves off to the side, where they were less likely to be noticed. She noticed that, while the telepath Lyta had been invited to this meeting, the Vorlon ambassador for whom she worked had not. Perhaps the things Lorien had revealed about the Vorlons had something to do with that, but Hermione was sure it didn't bode well.

The four kids mostly conferred among themselves while Sheridan gave his report. After all, they knew most of this already.

"I'm not sure why we're here," Harry muttered. Hermione wasn't certain whether he meant the meeting or here in this time and place, but she supposed the point was valid either way.

"I know what you mean," Ron answered him. "I feel like we don't belong at this meeting."

"We only have one piece of the story," Ginny put in. "Maybe we need to listen to what the others have to say to get a true idea of what's going on." Hermione nodded thoughtfully, and the boys shrugged.

At least no one had drawn any undue attention to their little group. The same could not be said, however, for Lorien. When Garibaldi began demanding to know who Lorien was, Hermione found herself drawn back into the conversation. The security chief was being downright nasty, and though she didn't know him very well, the outburst didn't quite seem like him.

"Does something about Garibaldi seem a little…off?" she whispered to the others.

"I dunno. We only met him a couple of times," Ron echoed her own thoughts.

"He's probably just doing his job," Harry suggested. "Isn't he supposed to be suspicious of strangers and such?"

"No, Hermione's right," Ginny agreed with the other girl. "He always seemed to trust the captain before, but that seems to be somehow gone."

"Well, you don't seem to be in pain, Harry, so there must be no sign of the Shadows?" Hermione guessed.

"No Shadows," Harry agreed, nodding.

"Lyta would have sensed that, anyway," Ginny pointed out.

"Right." Hermione felt slightly foolish for having forgotten that.

"Let's talk about it later," Ron urged. "We're missing some other stuff."

He was quite right. As Hermione turned her attention back to the briefing, she realized that the others were talking about the Vorlons. Lyta was saying that they were planning to wipe out anyone that had any connection at all with the Shadows. This was confirmed when Ivanova and Marcus reported that they had seen an impossibly large fleet in hyperspace and had discovered, after their return to the station, that an entire planet associated with the Shadows had been destroyed. It was simply gone. Dr. Franklin made a medical analogy about the Vorlons not caring about how much "healthy tissue" was destroyed in the process.

Hermione felt frozen with shock, and she didn't hear any more of the meeting. Suddenly, Ron's comparison to a game of wizard's chess seemed horribly inadequate. An image of the destruction of Alderaan in the film Star Wars filled her mind. That, of course, had been fiction, but this present situation was all too real.

When she could move again, she swiveled her head toward her friends, seeing her own revulsion reflected in their faces. She reached for Ron's hand, needing to touch him. He actually did her one better, putting an arm around her and grasping her reaching hand with his free one.

"I can't believe it," she whispered as the attendees gradually dispersed. "A whole planet…just gone."

"It's not the kind of thing you'd expect from the side you consider good," said Ginny tightly.

"Kosh would never have supported this," added Ron decisively. "He was only in my head for a little while, but I'm sure of that."

"I think you're all overlooking something," Harry put in quietly. "We know that Shadows have been here."

"Which means Babylon 5 is probably on the list!" Hermione gasped. Another silence followed this as they all tried to make sense out of the situation.

The attendees to the meeting began to drift away until finally, only Sheridan, Lorien, Delenn, and Ivanova remained with the kids.

"Commander, you remember our previous guests," Sheridan indicated the four wizards, who moved hesitantly to join the others.

"Of course." Ivanova nodded toward them perfunctorily. "What's their part in all this?"

"We don't know yet, but I'm not about to turn down any help at this point. I'd like you to find them spare accommodations in Blue Sector."

"Blue?" Ivanova's composure was clearly shaken by this request, and her next question clarified the reason. "Sir, you want them in crew quarters?"

"I want to keep them close, and it seems the safest place. Lorien will be staying with me for the time being."

"Yes, sir." Ivanova went to a console mounted on the wall and began pressing points on the screen. Delenn and Sheridan conferred in tones too low for Hermione to hear.

"You have your identicards?" Ivanova asked, turning toward them. Hermione and the others rummaged in their bags and handed her their thin identification cards. One at a time, the commander inserted them into the computer and gave them back. "These will now open your doors. The boys are here, and the girls here." She pointed at two areas that appeared to be across the corridor from one another. Hermione tried to figure out how to get there, but Sheridan had come to look over their shoulders.

"Good," he nodded with satisfaction. "You'll practically be surrounded by security people I trust, and you won't be far from me. I'll accompany you there. Are you coming, Delenn?"

"Of course."

"Ivanova?"

The commander shook her head.

"I need to get back to CNC," she excused herself, and the captain nodded.

Hermione tried to concentrate on the route they took to their quarters. It took her mind off of the dark scenarios they might face. At last, the four teens were settled in their rooms, but being away from Ron did nothing to lighten Hermione's mood. She wandered around restlessly, surfing through the information on the computer console, playing with the light settings, and rifling through the books in her bag.

"I wonder if we'll get to eat with the crew, too," Ginny mused. She had gone to the small kitchen to find what was there and put together a reasonable snack of basic staples. Hermione briefly wondered why there was food here at all before realizing that these quarters may have belonged to someone who had, until recently, served in the military. Given the tempestuous history of the station, it probably wouldn't do to dwell on the reason for the vacancy.

"How can you be so calm?" Hermione finally exploded, no longer able to contain her agitation.

"I'm not calm, I'm hungry," the younger girl replied airily. "Aren't you?"

"Well…" Hermione suddenly realized that she couldn't remember the last time she'd had a real meal. "Actually, yes."

"There's nothing we can do right now, anyway," Ginny added, gesturing for Hermione to join her, which she did.

"That's the point," Hermione fretted nervously, in between bites. "I'm not sure what we can do at _any_ time. What these people face…it's huge! We're not prepared for an interplanetary war!"

"Are you sure?"

"What?" Ginny's question brought Hermione up short.

"Just because it's never happened doesn't mean we aren't ready," said Ginny reasonably. "We weren't ready to fight Death Eaters, either, but we did it."

_And nearly got killed, _Hermione added mentally. Still, their little group of six had held their own far better than anyone would have expected, so she supposed the redhead had a point.

"We must be here for a reason," Ginny continued. "In the morning, we'll get together with the boys and maybe the captain and Lorien and try to figure things out. We all need some rest in a decent bed, and I think Sheridan has earned a night with his girlfriend."

Hermione felt herself blushing as she abruptly understood that Sheridan's invitation to Delenn was not merely to help see her and the others to their rooms. However, Hermione frowned as something else occurred to her.

"Yes, but wasn't Lorien going to stay with Captain Sheridan, too?" she asked.

"That's true," conceded Ginny, a sly smile spreading across her face. "I hope the bedrooms in his quarters are far apart."

Concluding that Ginny could not be relied upon for rational conversation at present, Hermione declared herself tired after eating a little. Her assessment proved to be truer than she knew, as she was asleep within minutes of finding a bed.

--

Author's Note: My outline for this story is a lot more generic than the last story, so if there are things you as readers would like to see addressed, feel free to mention them. I'm hoping to update about once every two weeks. This is harder than my other stories, and that should give me time to write my other projects in between. Thank you in advance for your understanding!

Review responses:

Raggedygal: Great, thank you! I did read Deathly Hallows. If you read my Deathly Hallows – the Missing Fluff, you'll get an idea how I felt about the book. There will be at least one more chapter coming for that, eventually.

Faerylark: Thanks.

Ranger Aurora: Well, I thought I recalled Bester using the term "normals," but it has been a while since I actually watched the show, except for The Summons, which I reviewed while trying to write this chapter.

Samael3: You know, you guys keep bringing up things I never even considered. I suppose that's good because I don't have quite as clear a picture of where this is going as I did with the last story. My real challenge is to find a meaningful way for Harry & Co. to participate without drastically altering the events of Babylon 5.


	6. Chapter 6: Encounter

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

**Encounter**

Ginny awoke extremely disoriented. There were no curtains drawn around her bed, no stone walls were in sight, a faint humming seemed to emanate from every direction, and she could only hear the breathing of one other person rather than three. Blinking, she sat up, and the memory of the previous day gradually returned to her mind.

She swung her legs over the side of the upper bunk she'd slept in, dropping lightly to the floor. The quarters had evidently been designed to house four crew members in a pinch, so there was another bedroom, but she and Hermione had wanted to stay in the same room. Both of them were accustomed at school to sharing their sleeping space, and it was comforting for them to stay close.

Ginny visited the bathroom, discovering during the trip that it did not have the traditional water shower she was accustomed to. There was a small booth, but she couldn't find any water faucets. Fortunately, the sink worked normally (the toilet used some sort of vacuum system). Hoping that Hermione would have some insights, she raided the pantry and her own bag to put together a morning snack and returned to the bedroom.

Hermione was stirring by this time, so Ginny waited patiently until she was fully awake. When she took her friend to look at the "shower," Hermione explained that it used a sonic method of pulling dirt and oils off of your body. As far as she knew, it was still just a concept in their own time. Ginny used it, and while it did seem to clean her, it wasn't nearly as pleasant or relaxing as a hot shower.

They had just finished their morning routines and were sitting down to discuss the possible activities for the day when an insistent beeping sounded.

"Enter," said Hermione crisply, and Ginny belatedly recognized the sound as the equivalent of a doorbell on the station. The door slid aside to reveal Harry and Ron, who stepped in. The door closed behind them, and Ron turned to look at it.

"I don't think I'll ever quite get used to that," he remarked. Hermione greeted him with a quick kiss, and the four of them sat in their living room area.

"So, does anyone know what we're supposed to do?" asked Harry after they'd exchanged a few pleasantries. He seemed to be a little restless, in need of a plan.

"I think we need to wait until Captain Sheridan sends for us," answered Hermione.

"Or another officer or something," Ginny agreed. "But it will probably be Sheridan."

"I hate waiting," Harry muttered. Privately, Ginny felt the same way. She wished she could touch him to reassure him, but aside from the fact that she was also uncertain of their role in this time and place, their friendship did not yet permit that much familiarity.

"The captain's been gone for two weeks or more," Ron pointed out. "He's bound to have a lot to catch up on before he deals with us."

"He might also think we could use some extra rest," added Ginny. She could think of another reason that Sheridan might wish to stay in bed a little longer, but she decided not to say it out loud. She doubted that he would delay very long, knowing how important preparation was and how short their time was becoming.

Her suppositions proved to be true when, perhaps half an hour later, the door beeped again. Ginny called out permission to enter this time, and Captain Sheridan stood there with Lorien.

"Good morning," Sheridan greeted them pleasantly as the pair stepped into the room. He looked distinctly refreshed and far better than he had even the previous evening, which had already been a marked improvement over the condition in which they had found him in the caves of Z'Ha'Dum. "Did you all sleep all right?"

There were various polite murmurings in response, but Hermione cleared her throat.

"The rooms are fine, sir," she commented almost apologetically. "I'm afraid we haven't really covered how and what we're supposed to eat, though."

"Oh! I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. "I guess I didn't think about that."

"It's okay. We brought some stuff," Harry put in.

"But in the future, it would be nice to know where to get our meals," Ginny added.

"I'll show you where the crew eats," said Sheridan, nodding. "After that, there's someone I'd like you to meet."

There was something about the way Sheridan said this that made Ginny a little uncomfortable. However, she shoved any disconcerting feelings aside as she tried to memorize the way to what was apparently called the enlisted mess. She didn't really understand this terminology, since the place was actually quite clean – sterile, even – and the food was passable, if nothing like the feasts at Hogwarts or her mother's home cooking.

When Ginny later mentioned her confusion about the name to Hermione, the older girl grinned and explained that it was simply a military word used to describe where people ate. She thought it came from an old meaning of the word "mess" indicating a measurement. It eventually also came to mean a specific amount of food. Since military meals were usually rationed, the same to everybody, the "mess hall" was a place for them to get these measured amounts – mess.

This was far more than Ginny had really wanted to know, but she listened politely. It gave her a chance to exchange a glance with Harry, who seemed to share her uncertainty about where Sheridan was going to take them next. That didn't make her feel any better. To distract herself, she wondered if there were any chance that this stay on the station might have the same effect on her and Harry as their previous trip had had on Ron and Hermione. If so, she only hoped one of them wouldn't have to be seriously injured to make it happen.

After breakfast, Harry followed Sheridan and Lorien with some misgivings, his friends ranging around him. He couldn't explain it, but something just didn't feel quite right. Sheridan led them back to the green or alien portion of the station. He went much farther than Delenn's quarters, however, stopping at a large, sealed door. He opened a compartment on the side and began handing out breathing masks.

"What are these for?" asked Hermione, eyeing hers doubtfully. Harry looked at his as well, seeing that it had a full faceplate of a substance like glass, with canisters under the chin.

"This is the area of the station reserved for methane-breathers," Sheridan explained. Ron and Ginny frowned, but Harry remembered enough from primary school science to understand, at least on a basic level.

"Their air would be poisonous to us," Hermione clarified for the benefit of the Weasleys. Sheridan helped them all to put the masks on correctly, but when he handed one to Lorien, the ancient alien bowed slightly.

"It is not yet time for me to get involved," Lorien almost apologized. "I shall wait here." Sheridan appeared to study Lorien's inscrutable expression for a moment, then he shrugged. Harry couldn't help wondering whether Lorien would even need a mask to go in there. He certainly seemed pretty versatile, though he could be killed, and it was entirely plausible that suffocation would be one possible way that could happen.

"Okay," said Sheridan. "Everyone ready? Let's go." He opened the door, closing it again once they were all through. The air here had a distinctly yellowish color, odd to someone used to a transparent atmosphere. It felt like they were at the very edge of the space station by the time Sheridan stopped. He raised his head and threw his shoulders back in a manner that looked almost defiant and pressed the button beside a door.

"It's Captain Sheridan and a few guests," the captain answered in response to the hissed question through the speaker. His voice was coolly polite, but the tension in his stance belied that something was going on beneath the surface. Harry slowly drew his wand and looked over to see that Ginny had done the same. He nodded at her approvingly, noting that Ron and Hermione were following their example. All four were holding their "weapons" down at their sides, not threatening but ready if they needed them. Harry was all too aware that it wouldn't take much to crack their masks or disrupt the flow of oxygen, either of which could kill them within minutes. He felt extremely vulnerable. He gripped his wand more tightly in a hand grown suddenly moist.

The door slid grudgingly aside, or maybe it was just Harry's imagination ascribing emotion to it, and the five humans trooped in. The room was scarcely lit, and Harry could make out very little, but as far as he could tell, there was no real furniture. Occupying the center of the room was a large figure, taller than either Sheridan or Ron and twice as broad. The top portion seemed to consist of an angular, shell-like structure, similar in shape to a collarbone, supporting a snake-like head, featureless except for a small hole in the center. All of the visible parts looked like they were made of some kind of hard material, and there was a mottled pattern on them. Voluminous fabric extended from the support down to the floor, concealing everything below these "shoulders" and evoking a comparison with a glittery shower curtain.

The whole image did look a little silly, but Harry could almost feel the power emanating from the creature, and he was not fooled. It was fortunate that he remained alert because his only warning came in the form of a light blossoming in that hole in the alien's "face."

"Protego!" Harry shouted, bringing up his wand and casting the Shield Charm almost without thinking about it. A crackling bolt of orange collided with the invisible shield, and the two forces destroyed each other with enough energy to knock everyone backward a couple of steps. Four wands were now at the ready, waiting for the next attack, but Captain Sheridan placed himself between the kids and the alien.

"Ambassador Kosh, I came to introduce you to these kids, but I take it you recognize them already?" he offered mildly, but there was a hint of steel lying under his tone. Harry started a little at the name. Surely this couldn't be Kosh…yet it must be a Vorlon!

"Monsters! Aberrations!" hissed the creature in a raspy, mechanized voice, turning its head ponderously toward Sheridan as though in accusation. "How dare you bring these…_things_ into my presence!"

"They are humans, and they are under my protection," asserted the captain in an authoritative voice. "I brought them here hoping you might know how they can help us in the war against the Shadows."

"The assistance of the younger races is no longer required," responded the alien. "We are handling the problem."

This Vorlon, whatever its real name was, obviously knew what Harry and his friends were and must have been in the camp that wanted to destroy all witches and wizards. In addition, this last statement was clearly a reference to their genocidal campaign to wipe out all places known to have the taint of Shadows. What wasn't clear was whether it (he?) knew that some of the other races were already aware of this plan.

While Harry was thinking through all of this, there was a lengthy, tense pause. Without breaking the silence, the Vorlon turned its back (for lack of a better term), indicating a clear dismissal. Although Harry didn't believe it was possible, he felt like the temperature in the room had just dropped noticeably.

"I see," said Sheridan at last, his voice tightly controlled. "Thank you for your time." With that, he turned on his heel, and Harry could see no choice but to follow. The walk back down the corridors was a silent one.

"That was a Vorlon!" Hermione exclaimed, once they had rejoined Lorien and removed their masks. "Who was it? Why did you call him Kosh?"

"The only name he would give us was Kosh," Sheridan replied. He had visibly relaxed a little since ending what could only be called a confrontation.

"What? But he isn't--" Ron protested.

"Of course not," Sheridan agreed. "They're trying to cover up what happened to the real Kosh. What he said when he first showed up was 'We are all Kosh.' I think you can see that's not completely true. Anyway, it's one of the many subterfuges he's engaging in, and I'm beginning to get really tired of them."

"What was all that about?" Ginny inquired.

"A show, mostly," explained the captain. "Vorlons are strongly telepathic, more than any human I know, probably. He knew who you were before we went in there. I'm really sorry about that. I didn't expect him to attack you so blatantly."

"It's okay," Harry answered for all of them. "I think it's good that we finally met one. It sort of confirms what Lorien told us."

"Not that we doubted you," Hermione hastily said to Lorien. He merely nodded, his eyes twinkling with what might have been amusement.

"I still shouldn't have put you in danger," Sheridan insisted.

"No harm done," Ginny tried to assure him.

"We don't know that yet. Now that he knows you're here, we'll have to be especially careful. I guess it's a good thing he refuses to leave his quarters. That should make things safer for you. I'm sorry."

"You said that already," Ron reminded the captain with a lopsided grin. "Don't worry about us. We're sort of used to being in danger. Right, Harry?" Harry smiled ruefully back.

"More than I'd like," he acknowledged.

"Did you learn anything new?" Lorien addressed Sheridan, who shook his head.

"I really just confirmed what I already knew but didn't want to believe. We have to get rid of him if we're going to stop this war without tearing the universe apart."

Harry didn't like the sound of that.

--

Author's Note: I'm sorry if there are any inaccuracies in this. I still have to watch the next episode before I can continue. I'm also sorry if it's a little short and rushed. I'm going to be unavailable for a few days and wanted to get this done. Hope it was still enjoyable!

Review responses:

Stephen DOG Milne: Unfortunately, Londo and Vir are still on Centauri Prime, busy with planning the assassination of the Emperor. However, I hope to be able to bring them in before the story ends. I'm also mentally working on a few of the things you mentioned.

Faerylark: I think this one was even more interesting. A little more intersection with actual events in the next chapter, I think, and then I may veer off for a little while.

Ranger Aurora: That might explain my confusion. I do have direction, but it's not as specific as the previous one. With Shadow War, I had a good idea from the very beginning of what information was going to be in each chapter. I know where this will end, but I'm not entirely sure of all the twists and turns I'll end up taking to get there.


	7. Chapter 7: Endingsand Beginnings

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I thought it was time to bring in the events on Centauri Prime, since they are sort of connected, even though the Harry Potter characters won't be directly involved.

**Endings…and Beginnings**

Ambassador Londo Mollari stumbled blindly to his rooms in the imperial palace, feeling sick. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, breathing hard. If his white-streaked hair were not already standing up in a crown around his head in the Centauri fashion, it would surely have been on end from his recent audience with the emperor. Londo's assistant (and perhaps the closest thing to a friend he had), Vir Kotto, was suddenly in front of him.

"What was that about, Londo?" As usual lately, Vir's brown eyes were wide and frightened in his round face. His brown hair was swept back from his forehead and also arranged stiffly up behind, though not in nearly as ostentatious a manner as Londo's.

"It's Cartagia," Londo answered, rubbing a hand across his high forehead and sucking air through his slightly prominent canine teeth. "He's going to…Vir, we must do it soon." He could not yet voice the enormity of what the Emperor Cartagia proposed, but he had to collect himself and tell Vir. He needed to know.

As scattered as he felt, cunning and plotting had long been second nature to Londo, and a part of his mind was already working feverishly to come up with an answer to their problem. First, he needed to contact Babylon 5 to confirm the rumors and find out how much time he had. Then…

"Londo, what is it?" Vir demanded, and Londo realized that some of his shock must be showing on his face. His diplomat's mask was slipping, and he silently chided himself. "What's going on?"

"It's Cartagia," said Londo slowly in his heavily accented voice. He walked across the room and poured a dark red drink for himself out of a cut glass bottle. He offered another glass to Vir, who shook his head. "He's going to sacrifice Centauri Prime for his own…glory!" His r's rolled even more than usual in his discomfiture.

"What? How? I don't understand."

"Vir, perhaps you'd better sit down." Londo took his own advice and waited while Vir did the same. "The Vorlons are destroying worlds with connections to the Shadows." He suddenly felt extremely tired. When Vir's eyes widened even further, a feat Londo would have thought impossible just seconds earlier, he knew Vir had made the connection.

"But – But Londo! The ships! On the islands!"

"Exactly, Vir. They will come here. Cartagia wants our planet, our _people_, to become a pyre celebrating his ascension into godhood."

Londo could see his own horror mirrored in Vir's face as the other Centauri's mouth moved up and down soundlessly.

"He's willing to kill all of us?" Vir practically shrieked, finding his voice at last. Londo laughed dryly, with no humor at all.

"Not quite all. He wants me to be with him in his ship, watching over it as some sort of triumph."

"Londo, you can't let this happen!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Londo snapped, but he immediately regretted his tone as Vir recoiled. "I'm sorry, Vir. The first thing we need to do is find out whether this thing about the Vorlons is really true. After that, we must find the right opportunity to get rid of Cartagia and the Shadows."

"I'm with you, Londo," said Vir seriously, his mouth now set in a straight line.

"I know." Londo appreciated this even so, and he began figuring out who he would need to bribe to arrange a secure channel to Captain Sheridan.

"You are needed." The voice whispered in Ron's head, and he was instantly awake. He wasn't sure where that voice had come from, but he knew what he had to do and that he dared not refuse the summons.

"Lights," he said aloud, and the room was illuminated. Vocal commands were things Ron understood in this odd place; they felt like using magic. He pulled his clothes on, splashed some water on his face, and went to the other bedroom, where Harry slept. Ron knocked briefly on the door before opening it (it wasn't locked).

"Harry," he said in a normal tone of voice. "We have to go." Harry sat up, rubbed his eyes, and reached for his glasses.

"What's going on?" his friend demanded. "What time is it?"

"I don't know," Ron answered honestly. He hadn't really figured out how time worked on the station, so he just ate and slept whenever he felt it was time to do those things. "I just know we have to be somewhere soon. Can you call the girls, or should we just go over there?" Ron also had not learned how to work most of the technology. Even Muggle devices of his own time were mysteries to him, so 250 years in the future, anything that hadn't been made idiotically easy was well beyond his comprehension.

"We'd better call," Harry decided. "Give them time to get ready. You know how girls are." This, too, was something Ron was still in the process of learning, but he was willing to concede the point.

About fifteen minutes later, everyone had gathered in the corridor, ready to go and with as much information as Ron had in his possession. He led the way.

"Ron, where are we going?" Hermione demanded at one point.

"I'm not really sure," he admitted. "All I know is how to get there and that something important's going to happen." It was as though someone had imprinted a map on his brain, which he was carefully following.

After many twists and turns that appeared to lead them into the center of the station, a flash of light indicated the direction they were to go. They stepped cautiously into a large space that might have been for cargo or maintenance or something else entirely. Several pairs of glowing posts marched along one section of the room, and between them stood the Vorlon, looking like it had lightning shooting through it. A security team was ranged on a catwalk above them, shooting weapons that made everything seem to waver. Ron signaled the others to hide behind some large, metal crates. He looked up and saw signs saying "High Voltage." That jogged his memory enough to realize that the captain must be using "ekeltricity," or whatever it was called, against the Vorlon.

"Should we help?" suggested Ginny in a low voice, though the battle was loud enough that they could practically have shouted without anyone noticing them. Ron glanced around and saw Sheridan, also crouching behind crates and shooting.

"No," Ron answered his sister. "This time, we're just supposed to watch." He saw the telepath, Lyta, standing in the shadows, and Lorien was a short distance behind Sheridan. Turning his attention back to the Vorlon, Ron saw the head-part burst open. A purplish form of light emerged, trailing what appeared to be long tentacles and looking like some deep-sea creature. The security team shifted their aim to the new threat. Suddenly, Delenn came out of nowhere, and the purple thing dove toward her. Sheridan called out her name and jumped in front of her, absorbing the energy of the attack. Someone behind Ron gasped, and he felt frozen to the spot.

"Now!" he just barely heard Lorien give the signal. Slowly and deliberately, Sheridan turned around, facing the creature. A yellow energy poured out of him, and Ron recognized this as Kosh. Sheridan dropped to the floor once the Vorlon was no longer in him, and the purple and yellow beings twined around each other in an incomprehensible struggle. They shot out of the room, and the station began to shake.

Ron heard that voice calling to him again, and he closed his eyes. Kosh and the imposter were in space, around a strange ship. The ship exploded, and Ron felt a new yet familiar consciousness rushing into him. Although he knew it was only a fragment of what had once been Kosh, it was still a stronger presence than Ron could readily comprehend. He fell to his knees and dimly felt Hermione beside him, holding his shoulders.

"Ron! Are you okay?" She sounded worried.

"Yeah, I'm all right." He was adjusting to the Vorlon inside of him, recognizing that he might have to carry him for some time. "He's here now. Kosh. Just like Draal said." He looked up to see Lorien bending over Captain Sheridan, a glow forming on the captain's body beneath the alien's long-fingered hand.

"What's he doing?" Harry whispered.

"I think it's how he helped him before," Ginny answered. They were too far away to make out the murmured conversation, and the four teens stayed back while Lorien retreated and Delenn held Sheridan. Finally, some security personnel arrived to assist the captain to his quarters. Delenn didn't seem to know quite what to do, twisting her hands restlessly. Finally, her eyes lit upon Ron and the others.

"Would you like to come with me?" she offered. Since Ron didn't have any better ideas, he shrugged. When he glanced at his friends and sister, they nodded, so they followed Delenn to her quarters. She seemed to feel the need to make herself busy, so she made them cups of some kind of tea.

"What did we just see?" Hermione asked, once they were all seated. Delenn looked as though she wasn't quite sure where to begin, and Hermione clarified slightly. "I mean, what were those things in the air?"

"That is what Vorlons really look like."

"Really? Then…what's the shell thing?" Hermione's right hand twitched as if she wished she had a quill and parchment to take notes on this. Ron smiled affectionately, masking his expression by taking a sip of tea. It was a little on the bitter side, but not too bad.

"They call it an encounter suit," Delenn replied. Warming to her topic, she appeared to be losing some of her nervousness. "They allow other races to believe that they need it to survive in our atmosphere, but the truth is that they wear them to hide what they really are."

"The Vorlons are energy," Ginny realized. "They don't have a – a corporeal form!" Ron wondered where his sister had learned the word "corporeal." Then Hermione's voice in his head reminded him that she probably studied her subjects, unlike him.

"Like the Shadows," Harry added as Delenn nodded.

"I believe that all of the First Ones have left their physical bodies behind," Delenn said. "Some think that it is an inevitable stage of evolution to reach that point eventually."

"So…humans might not have bodies one day, either?" Ron spoke for the first time.

"That is one line of thought." No one said anything as Delenn sipped absently at her own drink. "Did you see how Lorien brought John back?" Again, there was a pause.

"Do you mean this time, or the other time?" Hermione asked, a little uncomfortably.

"The first time."

Harry cleared his throat, apparently deciding to answer for the group.

"Actually, no. We were unconscious at the time. When we woke up, he – Captain Sheridan – was already awake."

Silence fell again as Delenn nodded thoughtfully. She seemed troubled and distant, not like Ron remembered her, and she started a little when the door beep sounded.

"Come in," she announced, rising to greet whoever it might be. It was Lorien, telling her that Sheridan wanted to see her. She excused herself from her guests, telling them that they were free to stay if they wished.

The four wizards were finally alone to discuss recent events, but that didn't seem to be what Ginny had in mind.

"Let's follow her," she suggested, jumping up almost as soon as the door had closed.

"What? Why?" objected Ron.

"We might learn something important. Aren't you the least bit curious what they're going to talk about?" Ginny looked at the others, but only Harry looked interested at the proposition.

"Not really," Hermione replied.

"Ginny does have a point," Harry mused. "We might get a hint as to why we're here. We'll have to hurry, though."

"Why? We know she's going to Sheridan's quarters," Ron pointed out.

"Yes, but if we don't want them to know we're there, we'll have to use the invisibility cloak and slip in when the door opens."

"We can't all fit under the invisibility cloak," Hermione reminded him. "Besides, it might be a private conversation. I don't want to intrude."

"Well, if you and Ron don't want to go anyway, Harry and I can hide under the cloak," Ginny offered. Ron was about to say that he hadn't actually said he didn't want to go, but he shut his mouth as he reconsidered. He and Hermione hadn't had any time alone since they got here, and it might be nice. He looked over to Harry, who was wearing a slightly worried expression. His eyes met Ron's as though asking for permission. For the first time, Ron considered Harry and Ginny together under the invisibility cloak. It wasn't a pretty picture, but when his gaze fell back onto Hermione, the prospect of a good snog overrode his brotherly protectiveness.

"Sure, that sounds fine," he said with a shrug. "Hermione and I can go back to our room. Okay, Harry?"

"Yeah, we'll meet you back there," Harry agreed. He pulled the invisibility cloak over himself and Ginny, and they disappeared. To cover their exit, Ron and Hermione also left the room. Ron glanced over his shoulder, hoping he wasn't making a mistake. Harry was his best mate, right? Ron could trust him.

_Yeah, but it's her I'm worried about._ Hermione had said that Ginny gave up on Harry, but that wasn't the same as getting over him, was it? Ron hadn't forgotten how his sister used to pine over The Boy Who Lived. He sighed, deciding that he was just going to have to let it go. Harry hadn't ever shown any interest in her, after all.

"So, do you have anything specific planned?" Hermione broke into Ron's thoughts. He grinned down at her as they walked arm in arm down the corridor.

"Maybe one or two ideas," he answered airily while giving her a significant look. She smiled back and slipped her arm around his waist.

"What's the fastest way back to the room?" she whispered eagerly. All concern for his sister fled as Ron remembered just how much he loved his girlfriend.

--

Author's Note: Yes, the sexual tension will be coming soon. You know I had to get around to it eventually. I guess I've also now obligated myself to bringing Londo and Vir in again before this is done.

Review responses:

Stephen DOG Milne: Larry the Cable Guy? I don't know if I could write him appropriately to fit in, although I was thinking about having them run into those maintenance guys or someone similar.

Samael3: Fortunately, they don't have to find out just yet.


	8. Chapter 8: Preparations

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Well, I had all of two responses to the last chapter (one of them private), so I just have to ask – who is still interested in this? I should have mentioned last time that the idea of the last bit of Kosh being carried by one of the kids back to their time/world was my husband's. I also realized that Delenn said Ivanova told her Sheridan wanted to see her for this scene, so I'm sorry about getting those little details wrong.

**Preparations**

Harry was extremely uncomfortable. He'd never been alone with Ginny under the Invisibility Cloak before, and it was awkward on several levels. There was plenty of fabric to allow them to give each other room, of course, but the traffic in the corridor made it more practical for them to stay close. The keen awareness of the curved shape of her body beside him was bad enough, but the slightly flowery smell of her hair seemed to be the thing that really threatened to drive him over the edge.

Fortunately, the necessity of dodging people and aliens (more humans as they left the Green Sector) provided some distraction. Most annoying of all was how Ginny didn't even seem to notice. Or was she just covering it really well, like he hoped he was? Or was he just losing his mind?

When they reached Sheridan's quarters, the door was already closed. Harry and Ginny glanced uncertainly at one another. They probably should have expected this, but Harry didn't know what to do now. Perhaps they should have planned out their contingency plans beforehand. Of course, if they'd taken the time to do that, they wouldn't have had any chance at all of finding out what was going on.

Before they even had a chance to discuss their options, the door slid open, and Lorien stepped out. He nodded in their direction with a slight smile, almost as if he could see them, but Harry didn't really have time to dwell on that mystery. At any rate, Lorien appeared to pause for a moment, which allowed them enough space to slip inside before he left.

Harry and Ginny entered the room quickly, Harry barely pulling the last corner of the cloak out of the way of the door before it closed. Delenn and Sheridan were just a few feet in front of them, and Harry looked frantically around for a secure spot in which to stand. He spied an area behind a purple chair and herded Ginny in that direction. It was situated at an angle with a small sofa, creating a little corner. Even though they couldn't be seen, they both crouched down there as if at an unspoken signal.

Delenn was saying something about 20 years, and as Harry tried to follow their conversation, he gathered that this was how long Sheridan had left to live. Harry wondered how they would know he had a limit to his lifespan. Surely the captain could have lived much longer. Harry could only conclude that dying had drained some of Sheridan's natural life from him, and Lorien must have told them the limits of his restorative ability.

"…I get to spend it with you," Sheridan concluded his speech. "And that's why…" As he said this part, the captain began searching for something. Although he continued to talk, sort of, Harry was distracted by Sheridan's movements, especially when he lifted a throw pillow on the chair that was shielding Harry and Ginny. Harry held his breath as Sheridan picked a box up from that very chair.

"Merlin, is he going to--" Ginny began, but Harry cut her off.

"Sh!" he hissed, afraid they'd be discovered and disrupt what was about to happen. He'd seen enough films to have his own suspicions. Sure enough, Sheridan handed Delenn the small, black box, babbling about where he'd found it and how it wasn't quite what he'd been looking for. Delenn didn't seem to know what to do with the object, leaving it undisturbed on her hand, so Sheridan opened the box and showed her the ring inside. He explained that it was an Earth custom – an engagement ring.

Beside Harry, Ginny gasped, but he didn't try to shush her now. The couple before them was clearly absorbed with each other at the moment, and he found himself thinking many things at once. He was determinedly not looking at Ginny while he pursued these thoughts.

For one thing, Harry was astonished at how awkward the captain was. After all, he knew Sheridan had done this at least once before. Didn't it get any easier? It was already hard enough to ask a girl on a date, as Harry had learned so painfully two years ago. If someone as old and experienced as Captain Sheridan still fumbled through a proposal, Harry's hopes at improving his performance in the future seemed quite dim. It was all rather depressing, actually.

Of course, the whole thing was made more difficult by the fact that Delenn was unfamiliar with human customs, so Sheridan had to explain everything as he placed the ring on her finger. Once he'd made it clear he was proposing marriage to her and they embraced each other, Harry suddenly realized that they had another problem. Since it didn't look like Delenn would be leaving for a while, how were he and Ginny supposed to get out of here?

Finally, he turned to look at his companion. Her brown eyes were shining, and he thought she might actually have teared up a little at the scene they'd witnessed. Harry had always liked that Ginny didn't seem as prone to tears as other girls, but he supposed she was still a girl, after all, and allowances had to be made. For the first time, he considered how his father might have proposed to his mother and wished he could view that memory, perhaps in a Penseive.

Harry's eyes met Ginny's, and he rapidly forgot about their awkward position. Maybe it was the romantic mood that had been set by the older couple, or the humid warmth generated by their breath under the cloak, or just how bloody good she smelled, but suddenly, all he could think about was kissing her. He would just need to lean in a little…

He was rescued by a beeping at the communications monitor. He did his best to stifle his intake of breath as he started in surprise. He was too confused to follow Sheridan's conversation with the screen on the wall, but when it went dark again, Sheridan turned to Delenn apologetically. She was very happy, though, too happy to let a little interruption spoil her mood.

"It's all right," she assured him gently. "You go. We'll talk later."

"Yes, we will," he confirmed confidently, kissing her. "Dinner?"

"Dinner." Delenn nodded and left. Sheridan didn't immediately follow her, presumably needing to do something in quarters before he answered whatever duty was summoning him, but Harry and Ginny slipped out with the Minbari.

Harry was only conscious of one thing: the need to get out from under this cloak. He felt hot, very hot, and Ginny's continuing proximity was driving him mad. As soon as they found a narrow, empty turning, he ducked aside and pulled the cloak off of him, tucking it into a pocket and gasping for the recycled air of the station. Ginny, on the other hand, was laughing with delight.

"That was so much fun!" she exclaimed, leaning against the wall to support her. Harry shook his head at her.

"There's definitely some of Fred and George in you," he remarked.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," she accused, grinning teasingly and giving him a look that made Harry warm all over again and caused his stomach to turn over.

"No, it isn't, but…that was private! I was very uncomfortable!" That was certainly true, if not exactly in the way he was making it out to be.

"Well, we didn't know it was going to be private until we got there, did we?" she retorted reasonably. "Let's go tell Ron and Hermione."

"Why?" Harry asked honestly, although he followed her to the lift that would take them to their deck. "What have we learned?"

"We know that Sheridan's only going to live for 20 more years, and that he and Delenn are going to get married."

"I meant, what did we learn that's useful to us?"

"Does all knowledge have to be useful?" she challenged archly.

Harry had to laugh at her question. She had him there, and he could guess what Hermione's answer would be. As Ginny took off toward their quarters, her red hair streaming out behind her, Harry watched her for a moment before moving to catch up. He couldn't help thinking that if she were a Golden Snitch, he wouldn't want to let her go once he'd caught her.

The snogging session had barely got started (Ron had needed some food first, naturally) when the communicator in the other room beeped. Hermione groaned and leaned back.

"Ignore it," Ron advised, diving back in for another kiss. Hermione allowed it for a few seconds, but common sense took over, and she pushed him regretfully away.

"How many calls do we get?" she challenged him, standing up and straightening her clothing. She made one futile attempt at flattening her bushy hair before walking into the main room of the quarters the boys shared. "It must be important."

Ron trailed after her. Hermione answered the communicator, and Commander Ivanova's face appeared on the screen.

"I didn't get an answer at the other room," she explained with no preamble. "Are you all there?"

"Ron and I are," Hermione replied. Ron came up beside her, probably putting himself into Ivanova's field of vision. "Harry and Ginny are…" Hermione found herself at a loss here. Somehow, finishing the sentence with "spying on Captain Sheridan" just didn't sound very good.

"Taking a walk," Ron stepped in, rescuing her. He was a much better liar than Hermione.

"Well, when they get back, the captain would like to see you all," Ivanova informed them. Just at that moment, the door behind them gave a warning chime before it opened, and their two companions entered. Hermione could only surmise that at least one of them must have had the presence of mind to understand what she and Ron might have been doing and decided to give them some notice before barging in.

"Actually, they just walked in," said Hermione, relieved.

"Good. Sheridan's already on his way to CNC, and he wants you to go directly to a small briefing room off the main command center. I'm sending the location to your console. Can you find it on your own, or should I send an escort?"

Hermione was already downloading the best route into a pocket computer that had come with the room. She was getting used to this modern technology. She remembered that CNC was the abbreviation for "Command & Control," which was the primary activity center of the station, at least as far as the crew was concerned. Hermione took a moment to review the directions before answering.

"I think we can get there," she said. Ivanova nodded shortly.

"Be there in half an hour," the commander concluded, and she signed off.

"Not much for chit-chat, is she?" Ron remarked, but he didn't seem to require an answer.

"If you guys need something to eat, you'd better get it," Hermione advised Harry and Ginny, recalling that they hadn't had a meal since Ron's unusual summons. Honestly, Hermione didn't really even know if they were supposed to be awake right now. With all of the excitement over the Vorlon, she hadn't paid attention to the ship's time, and there was no other way of tracking day or night. Although she was curious about what the other two had learned, if anything, it would have to wait.

"Good idea. I'm starved," Harry asserted. They all went to the mess deck first, picking up handheld foods that bore a resemblance to Cornish meat pasties. They ate as they walked, although Hermione didn't think it would take them long to get there.

When she was finished with her pasty, Ginny related Sheridan's proposal to Hermione, who made a mental note to ask the younger girl about the details later. She was beginning to regret that she hadn't gone along, even though she was inclined to agree with Harry's interjections about intruding onto a private conversation.

They arrived at CNC, and once the guards let them through (they were apparently expecting the kids) Hermione had to catch her breath for a moment. It was not just the activity going on in the room or the array of monitors and consoles, though both of these features were impressive enough. What really caught Hermione's attention was the large window in front of her, opening up to the tapestry of stars on a dark background. In truth, however, she could scarcely see the starscape for the fleet of ships in various sizes and shapes either hovering around or in the process of docking. The true centerpiece of the view, though, was the jumpgate, a gigantic hollow circle made out of metal and just hanging there in the void. As she watched, the circle's center lit, and a ship began to come through.

Captain Sheridan was already there, of course, having been on his way sooner. Besides, his quarters were closer to the hub, for obvious reasons. He gave them a brief nod before returning to his conversation with Ivanova. Hermione found the entrance to the room they needed and guided the others inside.

The briefing room was a small space, with a single communications console near the door and an oval table in the middle, surrounded by six chairs. Feeling a little edgy, Hermione went to the monitor and found the channel Babylon 5 used to broadcast news. It was a repeated message, showing Ivanova giving the most recent update about the progress of the deadly Vorlon fleet. A list of planets not responding to communication signals and possibly destroyed was scrolling underneath her, along with the likely places survivors had been or would be sent. It really brought home how devastating this war had become. Death Eater attacks back home were bad enough, but the destruction of entire worlds was still too much for Hermione to really wrap her mind around.

"Shut that off; it's depressing," Ron pleaded. Hermione privately agreed with his assessment, but it was important for them to know what was going on out there. Still, she acceded to his request. A few minutes later, Security Chief Garibaldi walked in.

"Well, I guess I'm not late," he commented sardonically. "Wouldn't want to keep anybody waiting." He sounded unaccountably bitter, and though Hermione didn't know him very well, she couldn't help wondering what was going on with him. Meanwhile, Ginny was scrutinizing him closely.

"There's something wrong with you," the red-headed girl declared. He looked back at her grumpily.

"You're not the first person to tell me that," he quipped, trying to pass it off as a joke.

"No, I mean it," said Ginny persistently. "I'm not sure what, but something in you is…different. Not quite right. Has something unusual happened to you recently?"

"I don't know, okay?" Garibaldi stood angrily. "I disappeared for two weeks, and I don't remember anything from that time. It's a total blank. Is everyone going to ask me this question?"

"I'm sorry," Ginny finally backed down, but she exchanged a significant glance with the others. Hermione remembered that Ginny had blank spots in her memory when she'd been possessed by Tom Riddle/Voldemort and wondered if her suspicions were running along those lines.

"We didn't know," Harry added, stepping protectively in between Ginny and Garibaldi. The security chief visibly relaxed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he apologized. "I haven't been sleeping very well."

"Nightmares?" Ginny guessed. Garibaldi looked at her sharply.

"Sort of. Why?"

"Let's just say I've been there."

Garibaldi looked as though he were considering pursuing the topic further, but before anything more could be said, Sheridan walked in. He explained that Ivanova needed to stay at her post for the moment but would be filled in on anything important. Everyone sat down.

"Let's get this party started," Garibaldi muttered, but the humor that may have been intended seemed to be completely missing from his tone.

--

Author's Note: I don't really know much about the layout of the station, so I made that stuff up. I hope Sonicdale is enjoying this. No Harry/Ginny snogging yet, but I think we'll get there. The useful knowledge part was another thing taken from David Eddings's Mallorean. He inspires my writing a great deal. A portion of Harry's thoughts during the proposal scene were drawn from Bruce Boxleitner's commentary to this episode on the DVD, where he was complaining that he couldn't look cool and know exactly where the ring was. It just struck me as funny.

Review responses:

Stephen DOG Milne: Okay, well, we'll see if it fits in.


	9. Chapter 9: Dreams and Demons

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Thank you to the three of you who expressed continuing interest in this story. I will try to keep mine going as well, but I admit it's hard when my mind is filled with Avatar most of the time.

**Dreams and Demons**

"As you may know, we're gathering a fleet to move against the Vorlons," Captain Sheridan paced the length of the small room as he explained the situation to the four kids. "We expect they will reach here in about a week, but we have to stop them before then. Too many lives are being lost. Besides, it's only a matter of time before the Shadows begin to retaliate."

"I thought we were fighting against the Shadows," Harry put in, sounding confused.

"At this point, we're against both of them," Sheridan replied heavily. "You've all seen what they're capable of, and I don't know if even the largest fleet we can mass will pose any opposition to First Ones at all. There's still hope that we can find some First Ones to join us, but we'll have to move with or without them. I think you'll agree with me that we don't have any choice." Sheridan surveyed the faces before him, and even Garibaldi didn't offer any argument to this. He wasn't completely sure what was going on with his security chief since his disappearance, but he needed him right now and hoped he could trust him to be with them on this.

"What can we do?" Hermione asked in a small voice.

"I'm hoping you'll tell me. We've talked before about how the Shadow vessels operate. Unfortunately, virtually all we know about Vorlon ships is that they're somehow alive and bonded to their…owner, or captain, whatever you want to call them. Some Vorlon technology was used in making the WhiteStar fleet, and I can take you to one of them, if you think that would help."

"There are some spells we can use that might help to disrupt both of them," Ginny mused, tapping her teeth thoughtfully. "The main problem, the way I see it, is that we don't have any way of finding out whether they will work until we're actually there in battle."

"That means it will be too late to come up with another strategy if you're relying on us," Harry added.

"Plus, I don't think any of us has tried to cast a spell through space," Ron contributed, looking at his friends.

"He has a point," Hermione agreed. "Some things don't work across water, so I can only imagine what the void might do."

"Well, I guess we could launch some junk out there and let you wave your wands at it," Garibaldi offered. "That would at least take care of part of the problem."

"Good idea," Sheridan affirmed, nodding. He was glad that Garibaldi had brought this up, since it would hopefully dampen any objections he might have had to the assignment Sheridan was planning to give him. "In fact, I'd like you to work with these four. Keep them safe and go over anything they might be able to contribute. The Vorlons seem to be almost as afraid of them as the Shadows are of telepaths, so they may hold a key we don't see yet. Learn as much as you can."

"Yes, sir," Garibaldi agreed, with a terseness that indicated he would have liked to voice an objection but couldn't see anything obvious to dispute. This way, both of Sheridan's sets of unknowns would essentially be watching each other, leaving him free for the myriad of tasks he needed to take care of.

"Do you have maps of the places the Vorlons have hit?" Ron asked suddenly.

"Of course." Sheridan brought up the charts and instructed the computer to highlight the planets and bases that had been destroyed. Ron looked at them intently.

"Where are the other places with Shadow influence?" he wanted to know. Sheridan brought that information up as well, and the others in the room began to crowd around. "This is where they'll strike next." The redhead pointed definitively to a small dot that Sheridan didn't recall the name of.

"Are you sure?" Garibaldi echoed Sheridan's thoughts.

"I'm good at patterns," Ron shrugged. "You think they're on their way here, right?" He pointed to Centauri Prime, and Sheridan nodded.

"That's right. It's the homeworld of the Centauri. We estimate they'll be there in about three days. The planet has a huge population, and I hope we can prevent it from being attacked."

"You might have less than three days," Ron responded. "That's a big target, and they want it, but they'll stop at this other place first."

"How certain are you about this, Ron?" Hermione interrupted. "I mean, these are aliens we're talking about, and far advanced. There's no reason to suspect that their psychology is anything like ours." The boy turned to his girlfriend, managing a lopsided smile.

"Chess is chess, Hermione," he said simply. Sheridan frowned at the analogy. He hadn't thought about it, but the way the Shadows and Vorlons maneuvered around each other was a little like a game of chess, using members of the lesser races as pieces. It made the captain feel very small – but also very defiant.

"Can you tell us what your ultimate plan is?" Harry added to Sheridan.

"I don't see why not. Lorien and I want to bring the Vorlons and the Shadows face to face. They've been avoiding direct confrontation for millennia, and we think it's time they stop using the rest of us for cover."

"I can't argue with that last part, Captain, but didn't you say that a direct battle between First Ones would tear the universe apart?" Garibaldi questioned apprehensively.

"Exactly." Sheridan paused to let that sink in. "I'm banking on the fact that they still care about that at some level. Besides, I plan to put us between them." A stunned silence greeted this announcement. Sheridan hadn't been sure whether to reveal this part of the plan, but everyone else would know it soon enough, so he didn't see the harm in telling this group.

"Let me get this straight," said Garibaldi slowly. "You're planning to put us between a rock and a hard place?"

"Yes," Sheridan answered with a curt nod. "They will have to deal with us." And Sheridan hoped he could convince both sides that they had become obsolete. The younger races could manage perfectly well without them, and their fight was just muddying the waters.

"When is this going to happen?" Ginny asked.

"I was hoping we would have a little more time, but since I obviously want to avoid as much loss of life as possible, it will be soon. We should be able to put it all together within the next couple of days."

"I guess we'd better get to work, then," Garibaldi stated, standing up and adjusting his uniform. He turned to the four teens. "Why don't you all come over to my place and show me what you got?"

Sheridan watched them file out before returning to CNC and resuming his duties there.

Ginny and the others accompanied Garibaldi to his quarters, which, while comfortable enough, were nonetheless obviously occupied by a bachelor. Ginny had enough single brothers to recognize the subtle indicators.

They talked about various spells that might be of use, like the Confundus charm. Hermione reasoned that it might confuse the Shadow ships just as well as telepaths could, but the Vorlon vessels were a bit more of a mystery. Eventually, Garibaldi pulled Ginny aside while the other three talked. She had guessed that he would.

"What did you mean back there?" he demanded, speaking with a quiet intensity that might have frightened Ginny if she hadn't understood his likely state of mind. "What's happened to me?"

"I don't really know," she told him candidly. "I only know that you remind me of something that happened to me."

"Okay, so what happened to you?"

"I was possessed." Ginny tried to prepare herself to express more of what she'd experienced. He needed that from her now, much as Harry had needed her perspective last year. Harry…it had been quite nice to share the Invisibility Cloak with him, and there were moments when she was sure he'd felt something, too. They'd been very busy since returning from that little adventure, though, so she'd scarcely had time to think about it, let alone try to figure out his side of it.

"Like by a demon?" Garibaldi was skeptical now, and Ginny wrenched her mind back to the present.

"I wish," she replied fervently. "I might have known how to deal with that. No, this was far worse." She briefly told him about the way Tom Riddle had gained her confidence, worming his way into her soul and taking over her body when it suited him. She only hinted at the way she had been rescued; that part was still a little fuzzy to her, anyway. The main thing she remembered was a deep sense of shame and bawling like an infant. It was not her best moment, to be sure, and she actually wished she could forget that entire year. She could have used a Memory Charm to do so, but she felt that the knowledge she held might prove to be important. Maybe after Voldemort was killed, she would consider her options again.

"You don't think that's what's going on with me, though?" he asked when she was done.

"Not exactly," Ginny responded. "You haven't had any blank spots in your memory, have you?"

"Just that two weeks I was gone."

"And you don't wake up someplace, not knowing how you got there?"

"Not since I quit drinking." He made the statement offhandedly enough, but the tightness around his mouth and eyes that seemed to indicate that this had been more than a simple life choice. Ginny knew of alcoholism and suspected that the man before her suffered from it. It was possible that this dependency, or whatever trait in him that made him susceptible to it, also made him a good subject for whatever had been done to him.

"Then I would guess that something has been planted in you instead," she decided. "Keep in mind that I don't know for sure – I wasn't there – but I'd guess it's not active and has no intelligence of its own. There may just be things that will surface under the right conditions."

"Like post-hypnotic suggestion?" When Ginny just looked at him blankly, Garibaldi tried to explain. "I keep forgetting you don't know about stuff we take for granted. There are people called hypnotists, and they put you in a sort of trance. After they bring you out of it, they can sometimes make you respond in a certain way when they say a key phrase or something."

"Yes, it might be something like that," Ginny agreed. Hermione would probably know more about it.

"Well, can you tell me if that's what's going on?"

"I'm afraid not. There are some spells that allow us into the mind of someone else, but they're very difficult, and none of us have been trained."

"A telepath could probably do it, though?"

"I still don't know much about them, but I expect they could."

"And they could have done this to me in the first place," Garibaldi went on, but by this point, he seemed to be talking more to himself than her. Ginny made a mental note to see if she could find out more about these telepaths. Although they were supposed to be related to wizards in a way, there was clearly a lot she still didn't know about them.

Ginny and Garibaldi rejoined the others and caught up on their brainstorming. Garibaldi set a time for them to try some of their techniques in space and sent them off. With an excuse that they needed to freshen up a little and a promise to meet the boys shortly for a meal, although no one was really sure which meal it was supposed to be, the girls retreated to their quarters.

Hermione grilled Ginny about what she and Harry had overheard, and Ginny related everything she could remember about Sheridan's proposal.

"It sounds wonderful," Hermione sighed. "I wonder if I'll get a proposal anything like that some day?"

"If you're counting on my brother, I wouldn't hold your breath," Ginny answered, laughing at the thought of Ron coming up with words that sentimental.

"He can be romantic," Hermione retorted defensively. "Sort of. In his own way."

"Hey, as long as it works for you." Ginny fell silent, remembering some of the more personal aspects of her excursion with Harry.

"So, what about you and Harry?" Hermione broke into Ginny's thoughts, and Ginny worried for a moment that she had either spoken aloud or Hermione was becoming a telepath herself.

"Huh? What about us?" she tried to play it innocently.

"I know there's something you're not telling me," Hermione pressed. "We've been friends too long for you to fool me." Ginny sighed with resignation.

"Oh, well, I wasn't really expecting what it would be like under the Invisibility Cloak with him," she confessed. "I mean, just him."

"Ron and I have used it a couple of times, so I think I know what you mean," Hermione admitted, turning a little pink.

"Have you ever used it with just Harry?" Ginny wasn't really jealous, but she was curious.

"Only once, in first year, but we were carrying a crate with a juvenile dragon at the time, so we were rather distracted. Besides, I don't think he'd really noticed girls yet."

"The trouble you've all managed to get into," Ginny shook her head in a mockingly disapproving manner. There were so many stories of the trio's time at Hogwarts that she still didn't know. On the positive side, it gave her many things to ask Harry about. She was storing up good excuses for conversation.

"So…is there anything else you'd like to tell me?" Not one to be distracted for long, Hermione returned to the original topic.

"Nothing, really. It's just that…with the proposal and all, the atmosphere was kind of romantic, and I couldn't help thinking…." She trailed off and threw up her hands exasperatedly. "Oh, I'm hopeless, aren't I?"

"What? I wouldn't say that."

"We're becoming friends now. I should just be happy with that and not try to louse it up."

"Oh, don't start that. That's what kept me miserable for three years or so."

Ginny knew she should take advantage of Hermione's experience, but this was different. Harry had known about Ginny's crush for ages, so if she started to show feelings for him again, she might just be dredging up embarrassing memories. On the other hand, there were times she thought she saw signs in him. She was just too insecure to take them too seriously.

"There was a moment," she decided to tell her friend. "I could swear he was about to kiss me, but nothing happened."

"Well, maybe being here again will help bring you two closer," Hermione commented.

"I don't suppose either of us really has any other romantic options at the moment," Ginny laughingly agreed.

"I didn't mean it like that!"

"Don't worry; I know that." Ginny paused. She felt that they'd exhausted the possibilities of this conversation, so she jumped to her feet. "We'd better go meet the boys. I know I'm getting hungry, so they must be practically ravenous." Hermione laughingly agreed, and the two of them left the room with nothing further settled than had been when they came in.

--

Author's Note: You know, this turned out to be quite a long chapter, considering that I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to put in it when I started. I hope it doesn't drag too much, but the big climax of the Vorlon/Shadow conflict is coming up in only two episodes, so I don't want to rush there. I feel like I have to build up to it.

Review responses:

Stephen DOG Milne: Yeah, I like pasties, too. I want to take this time to thank you for being such a faithful reviewer. It helps keep me going.

ivanovandevotee: That's pretty much what I thought when I first conceived of the idea. It's strange enough that it hasn't garnered a lot of interest, but those who take the chance seem to find that they like it.

SnakeEyes16: I kind of figured you were still there. It's been rare for me to get more than 3 reviews for any chapter thus far, so the holidays can't completely explain it, though obviously, a loss of two of those makes a larger difference than in stories where I routinely get 10 reviews per chapter.


	10. Chapter 10: On the Eve of Destruction

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I'm really sorry this has taken so long. The holidays put me quite far behind, and it's getting difficult to find time to watch the DVDs or do the other research I try to do to get things right. Incidentally, I have no idea whether Atari was a big seller in Britain, but given Dudley's penchant for video games, it seems plausible that he might have had one in the eighties.

**On the Eve of Destruction**

Harry and the others met Garibaldi and a couple of technicians in a sort of loading dock, as planned. The technicians were the ones who would be loading station garbage into an airlock and subsequently jettisoning it into space for the wizards to practice their spells on. Obviously, things like Confundus weren't going to work on inanimate objects, but Ginny used a shrinking charm to good effect.

"If we make the Shadow ships that small, it'll be just like Space Invaders!" Harry remarked. When he got blank stares from his friends, even Hermione, he gave an embarrassed chuckle and shrugged. To his surprise, however, Garibaldi brightened.

"Space Invaders? Man, that's a classic! Did you play it?" he asked Harry curiously.

"Only when my cousin got tired of it. I'm surprised anyone from the future still remembers it, though."

"What can I say? I'm a little old-fashioned," Garibaldi replied with a far-off expression that might have been nostalgia. "I guess you might have noticed some of the decorations in my quarters?"

Harry nodded, having recognized the Looney Tunes memorabilia that had been scattered about. It had seemed strange to him at the time that a grown man could be a fan of cartoons created centuries before his birth. Still, Harry could not deny that this was the first real sign of a positive emotion that Garibaldi had yet shown, and Harry found himself fascinated by what had triggered it.

"Well, sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century," Garibaldi concluded. "You must have actually played it on an original Atari!"

"Well, yeah."

"What was it like?"

"Um, well, it was…fun, I guess." Harry smiled faintly, uncertain how to proceed. To avoid the discomfort, he turned his attention back to the casting of spells and sent a few out absently. They'd found that lightning could not travel through space, but sheer bursts of energy worked when properly aimed, and Hermione was experimenting with Transfiguration, though its use was limited due to the time and concentration it took.

To tell the truth, though, Harry was quite distracted, and not by his conversation with Mr. Garibaldi. The source of his distraction was the same as it had been for several days – that is, Ginny – but the framework seemed to have changed somehow. Something Captain Sheridan had said during the course of his proposal to Delenn had struck a chord in Harry: "We might not survive the next few weeks."

Although he had not put it into exactly those words, Harry felt much the same way about the war going on in his own time. He knew that he eventually had to face Voldemort and that he might not survive. He recognized that this knowledge was keeping him from even considering the possibility of pursuing Ginny. It had only been a few weeks (and less than that if you only counted the time he'd actually been conscious) since he'd found out she was available, but he hadn't really allowed himself to think about it much. It had been easy enough to find other things to think about, but Sheridan's turn of phrase had caused him to re-evaluate his situation. If Sheridan considered his relationship with Delenn important enough to take to the next level, despite an uncertain future, maybe it wouldn't be wrong for Harry to take a similar step.

He wished that he had someone to talk to about this. Ron was obviously out of the question, as was Ginny. Hermione might be a possibility, if he could somehow get her alone, but he would be putting her in a difficult position as it pertained to her friendship with Ginny. There was no one else here he knew well enough to confide this sort of thing.

"Too many variables," Hermione muttered, pulling Harry out of his reverie. "These aren't sentient beings, and the Shadow and Vorlon vessels are made of completely different material. We still have no idea whether this will work on the real thing."

"We've at least found out a lot of spells work through space," Ron pointed out. "That's something."

"But is it enough?" Any further conversation was cut off by the sound of Garibaldi's comlink.

"Go," he instructed the device.

"Michael, it's Sheridan. We're having a meeting of all the allies in the council chamber. The five of you need to get there as soon as possible."

"What's going on?"

"The Shadows have just upped the ante." With that, the captain signed off, leaving everyone staring at each other in shock. Garibaldi recovered first, dismissing the technicians and setting an almost impossible pace to the correct room.

Harry wasn't really sure he wanted to know what had spurred this new turn of events, and his fears were realized when they found a video recording playing to the crowd of aliens and a few humans. Harry and the others joined the group, watching something that looked like a swarm of gigantic insects wriggling over the surface of a planet. A voice spoke over the image, explaining that the swarm was actually a collection of bombs that burrowed deep into the planet and detonated, each with the force of a nuclear explosion.

There were noises of shock and horror all around, and Ron and Garibaldi swore. Harry's head was reeling, and he wished he could sit down, but there was no seat readily available. Surprisingly, it was Ginny who took his arm in an effort to steady him, but her touch helped more than any physical strength she could lend him. He looked over to see that Ron and Hermione were clinging to each other.

"How?" Harry managed to squeak out in little more than a whisper. "How are we supposed to stop something like that?" He tried to imagine his world if the Death Eaters had weapons of this magnitude, and his mind quailed in response. The Killing Curse was bad enough.

"We can't," replied Garibaldi flatly. "We can't stop weapons that powerful. All we can do is draw their attention before they attack." He began pacing and chomping at the bit as Sheridan continued to be absent from his own meeting.

Meanwhile, a report from other Rangers indicated that the next place the Vorlons would strike was a planet called Coriana VI. This didn't mean anything to Harry, but it was apparently a large enough population center that they had to act before it was hit. A number in the billions was tossed around.

Finally, Sheridan and Delenn arrived and began outlining their plan. Certain key people and aliens (Garibaldi included) took seats at a large, round table, but Harry and his friends withdrew to one side and tried to be inconspicuous. The crux of the strategy was more or less what Sheridan had explained to them earlier. However, there was another step. They had to come up with a way of making sure that the Vorlons and Shadows would be at the same place at the same time.

Everyone watched and listened in eerie silence as Captain Sheridan informed a Ranger captain of the suicide mission on which he was sending him and his crew. It was their job to protect the information about a "base" that was about to come online in a way that looked real but would still deliver it to the Shadows. Harry marveled at what it must take to make a decision like that. He looked at the faces of his friends, wondering if he would ever have to send them into that kind of situation. He knew without a doubt that they would do it if he asked, and the weight of that knowledge was oppressive.

When the grim orders had been given, the representatives of the various races took their seats again, maintaining the same silence. Only gradually did they begin the necessary discussion to complete arrangements and assignments. Eventually, the conversation was completed and the humans and aliens filtered away.

"Captain, I hope to God this plan of yours works," Garibaldi said fervently. Then he left to make his own preparations.

"I want you four with me," Sheridan said to Harry and the others, addressing them when they, Delenn, and Sheridan were the only ones remaining. "I have a feeling your unique skills may be useful."

"With all due respect, sir, I'm not sure what we can do against that," Hermione put in shakily.

"We'll find out when the time comes," the captain replied. "We all will."

"We'll do our best for you, sir," Harry promised on behalf of them all. Ginny gave him a squeeze on the arm before releasing it as though she'd forgotten she was still touching him.

"You heard Delenn mentioning the First Ones we're hoping to bring into this battle," Sheridan added. When they all nodded, he continued. "We don't know how much they'll be willing to help, and we can't honestly expect them to risk much for our fight. That's where you come in. I've also gathered all the telepaths of various races I could find on the station."

"So Lyta's not the only telepath here?" Ron asked curiously.

"She's the only human telepath, but the reason for that is a long story," Sheridan replied. "Eventually, we may need to explain to you about the Psi Corps, but I don't think this is the time."

"There are also Minbari and Centauri telepaths who are willing to help," Delenn added.

"But no Narns," Hermione commented, half to herself. Everyone looked at her, and her cheeks grew slightly pink under the scrutiny. "All of the Narn telepaths were wiped out, weren't they?"

"Yes, during the last Shadow War a thousand years ago," Sheridan acknowledged.

"How did you know that?" asked Harry, stunned.

"Last time, when Ron…was in Medlab, a Narn came and talked to me for a bit," Hermione explained. "Let's see…his name was G'Kar. I haven't seen him since we've been here, but I thought he would have wanted to be part of this. Where is he?" Delenn and Sheridan exchanged a meaningful glance.

"No one knows," said Delenn gently. "He left some time ago to look for Mr. Garibaldi. Marcus went with him, but they were separated, and only Marcus returned."

"But – but he said…if he left here…" Hermione trailed off, going very pale.

"Hermione, what is it?" Ginny asked with concern, touching her friend on the arm. Hermione only shook her head. Harry turned back to the captain, whose mouth was a thin line.

"He was a wanted Narn," Sheridan explained. "He had sanctuary here, but outside of the station, he could have been captured by the Centauri."

"He said they would probably kill him," Hermione whispered, finding her voice at last.

"Do you think that's what happened?" Ron demanded. The captain shrugged. He looked sympathetic, but Harry understood that he had larger problems right now. There was a lot that had to be done in the next three days.

"It's likely, but there are also a lot of other things that could have happened. It's a dangerous universe."

As Harry considered what they were about to face, that seemed like the understatement of the century. Maybe even _any _century.

It was done. Emperor Cartagia was dead, and Londo Mollari had been named Prime Minister on an interim basis. He was probably only a step or two from the throne himself now. His mouth twisted into a self-mocking smile.

After years of being a joke, after being assigned as the ambassador to Babylon 5 because no one at court considered it important enough to send anyone else, now his people were turning to him. In their time of crisis, the Centauri were looking to him to save them. At last, he had the respect and admiration he had always craved.

And it all tasted like dust. Londo poured himself a drink to try to get the phantom flavor out of his mouth. The gods surely had a well-developed sense of irony to give a man the thing he had always desired only when he wanted it no longer.

Furthermore, things had not gone according to plan. Through a series of accidents, Vir had been the one to strike the killing blow, and he was not dealing with it well. Even for someone as cynical and corrupted as Londo, the decision to take the life of another sentient being was not an easy one, especially your own sovereign. For someone as untainted as Vir had managed to remain over the years…well, it was understandably even more difficult. It had needed to be done, of course, but the loss of Vir's relative innocence was another thing to add to Londo's already lengthy list of regrets.

Forcing these thoughts out of his mind, Londo turned his attention to the problems at hand. He didn't really have any time or mental energy to spare and just had to hope that Vir wouldn't drink himself to death in the meanwhile. On the other hand, that demise was probably preferable to the one that awaited them if Londo failed in the next tasks he'd set for himself. He had a day, perhaps two, to rid himself of Morden and his hated "associates" and convince the Vorlons to leave them in peace. It was precious little time, but he had to succeed or his world would pay the price.

And it was for Londo's sins that his people would die. It was not just a matter of loyalty or patriotism for him, but also an issue of personal responsibility. His ambition had led him to deal with Morden, not asking too many questions about the people for whom he worked or how they accomplished the things he requested. Londo tried to convince himself that he would not have gotten involved with Morden if he'd known he was connected to the Shadows, but it made no difference now. The fact was that he'd allowed himself to be drawn in by the tantalizing question: What do you want?

Londo smiled again, but this time, it was genuine. He believed that Vir had given the best answer ever to that question, back when Londo had been trying to withdraw from his devil's bargain. Londo had sent Vir to meet with Morden in his stead, and the Shadow representative had made the mistake of asking Vir his signature question. Vir's reply had run something like this:

"I want to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this."

In many ways, Vir was a much stronger person than Londo, and though he had been taught from early childhood to disdain those who would not seize power or take advantage of others, Londo could not help but respect him. In any case, Vir's wish was a gift Londo was planning to give to his friend, and it would happen soon.

Londo stood and paced the room, looking out occasionally at the blank expanse of hyperspace that hastened his journey back home from Narn.

None of this would bring Adiera back, of course. Londo's lips curled, revealing his teeth in what might have been taken for a beastly snarl. Certainly, he had personal reasons for wishing Morden dead, as he was the one responsible for murdering the only woman Londo had ever truly loved. His new position had finally made him privy to the definitive intelligence about Morden's involvement in that. Londo supposed the act had been intended to keep him in line, dancing to the Shadows' tune. However, it had backfired drastically, as Morden was about to learn. Without Adiera, Londo had nothing left to lose and was therefore willing to risk anything.

Londo poured himself another drink and silently toasted his late love before draining the glass. To honor her memory, he would save their world. After that, he could happily die and join her in the Afterlife, if there was one. For perhaps the first time in his life, he actually hoped there were.

Unfortunately, Londo Mollari was forgetting one important thing that the Vorlons likely had not. He had already been tainted by the Shadows.

--

Author's Note: Wow, a record response of 6 reviews! Oddly, this chapter took more out of me than I expected. I do hope it was worth the wait. The next one will probably be action-packed and will likely take me quite a while to draft. I'll also try to find time to work G'Kar back in.

Review responses:

selenepotter: That's the plan! I have a lot of work to do to figure out exactly how that will happen, though.

Stephen DOG Milne: Yeah, I know. I may have to go back to the books to look up a few spells, and I'm sure I'll end up making a few up.

Ranger Aurora: I understand, and thanks for stopping by.

Prometheus-1984: Your name doesn't sound familiar. I'm glad that I'm drawing in a non-HP person. It's sometimes hard to balance my audience, since I'm not sure who knows what, and I often have to explain things that might seem tedious to fans of one canon or another.

SnakeEyes16: Right you are. And I am planning a nice Harry/Ginny scene in the next chapter.

Samael3: I'm sorry, but I can't remember who Ulkesh is. Can you refresh me?


	11. Chapter 11: Convergence

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Into the Fire arrives at last! I'm sorry, but it's not quite as much action as I'd hoped. I had to compress some events. This is going to have a couple of really short scenes in it as I weave some events together.

**Convergence**

G'Kar sat amid the ruins of what had once been a perfect replica of the Centauri throne room back on Centauri Prime. This one, however, was on Narn, and it had been recently reduced to rubble by his fellow Narns as they celebrated their newly won freedom.

He was scratching away on some scraps of paper. He would add the pages to his journal eventually, but for now, he wanted to get his thoughts down before they faded away. Taking a break, he lay his improvised pen aside and looked around with his one remaining eye. It was strange, but since losing his left eye to the late Centauri emperor's whim, he felt like he could see more clearly than he ever had.

This was his homeworld, yet it no longer felt like home. G'Kar needed to get back to Babylon 5. For one thing, his journal was there, along with his ancient copy of the holy writings of G'Kwan and the few other personal belongings he could claim. Furthermore, he might pose a danger to his people if he remained here.

The sounds of celebration continued outside, but G'Kar felt no inclination to join in. They didn't understand. They actually wanted him to become their new, absolute ruler – to trade one form of despotism for another! He had to place himself out of range of temptation, both theirs and his. He had no wish to lead exclusively, preferring to speak as one voice of a ruling council. However, if he stayed, the people might wear him down until he agreed, and there was no telling what would happen then.

Besides all of this, there was still a tremendous war raging out there, one that might still endanger everyone. It was far too soon to declare a victory. Sighing, G'Kar bent over his notes again.

Ron and the others entered Whitestar 2 in preparation for the big confrontation. The past few days had been a blinding whirl of activity as they'd practiced spells and attended strategy sessions. Lorien and Commander Ivanova were still out searching for the remaining First Ones, but they knew where to meet the fleet when they were done.

The ship seemed oddly familiar to Ron, although he obviously had never been on anything quite like it before. He'd only been on three spaceships, all of them within the past couple of months, in subjective time.

_The Whitestars were made using Vorlon technology,_ a voice explained inside Ron's mind. _I am comfortable here._ This led Ron to have a sudden thought, and he wondered why it hadn't occurred to him earlier.

_Does that mean you could help us with what Vorlon ships are made of? _he demanded. He sensed only that Kosh appeared to be withdrawing somewhat shamefacedly, and Ron took that as assent.

"And you couldn't have mentioned this sooner?" In Ron's irritation, he spoke the thought aloud. Several of the crew glanced at him, but as most only understood Minbari, they swiftly turned back to their tasks. Ron's companions were another matter.

"What?" Hermione asked him. Ron gave a disgusted sound and lowered his voice to answer, forcing the others to huddle in so that they could hear him.

"Kosh says he could help us with some information about how the Vorlon ships are made," he replied.

"Well, that would have been nice to know while we were practicing spells!"

"That's what I said."

"Okay, well, is there any way we can use this information now?" Ginny interjected, ever the one to live in the moment. Ron couldn't answer for a few seconds as his mind was flooded with images and concepts he had no hope of grasping.

"I need something to write with!" he managed to say at last. Naturally, Hermione had parchment and quill on hand, and she passed some to him. Finding an open, flat surface wasn't easy, but they eventually found a room that wasn't being used. It contained several of the sloping, Minbari beds, but in his impatience, Ron simply knelt on the floor and began drawing while the others bent over him interestedly.

Ron felt the ship detach from the station, followed by an odd sensation that must have been the jump into hyperspace, but he ignored all these distractions and kept writing. After several minutes of feverish scratching, Ron had created a series of diagrams and notes that he couldn't decipher. He sat back on his heels, feeling drained.

"We should get this to the captain," Hermione recommended, casting a spell to dry and fix the ink in place.

"We can't," Harry interrupted.

"Why not?"

"How are we supposed to explain where we got it from?" he pointed out. "I don't think Kosh wants anyone to know he's in Ron now. Everybody here thinks Kosh is…gone."

Ron heard the Vorlon inside him indicating an affirmative to this, so he nodded to show that this was the case.

"He's right," Ginny agreed at the same time. "But then…what are we supposed to do? This could be a big help!"

Hermione rolled up the sheets of parchment and tapped one end against her chin thoughtfully, but it was Ron who came up with the answer, possibly with some help from his internal passenger.

"Maybe they don't need it," he said simply.

"What?" Harry and Ginny replied simultaneously.

"What do you mean?" Hermione queried more specifically.

"It's too late for Sheridan to tell the rest of the fleet about this, and what can they really do?" Ron pointed out. "It's not like they can re-make their weapons now."

"It might help them know where to aim," Harry offered doubtfully.

"Only if they can figure the diagrams out before the battle started," Ron shot back. "Anyway, by the time the Vorlons show up, Sheridan's going to be mainly trying to talk to them, not hit them."

There was a little more discussion after that, but when Ron saw that he'd won Hermione over, he knew that he had won. After all, they all knew he was right. Sheridan's first move would be to destroy a Vorlon outpost, drawing them to the right location. The Shadows should already be on the way due to the "intelligence" that had been carefully planted.

Since the kids were not needed for this initial phase, they were free to remain out of the way and plan their own attacks and defenses. They spread out the drawings and began their discussion.

"I don't really like the idea of trying to completely destroy the Shadow ships," Hermione confessed. "Not with what they've told us about the people who are operating them."

"I know what you mean," Ginny concurred, nodding. "A lot of them are doing this against their will."

"Like Sheridan's wife," Harry added quietly. Ginny looked over at him, wondering why this seemed to be affecting him so much.

"Yeah, but if what Sheridan said is true, those people, aliens, whatever will never be the same again," Ron reminded them.

"That doesn't mean they deserve to die!" Ginny snapped, maybe a little more sharply than she intended. She knew what it was like to be controlled by an outside force, so the subject was rather personal to her.

"I know," Ron returned, recoiling a little at her vehemence. "I didn't mean that. I just meant – I don't know what I meant."

"We understand," Hermione interposed. "I don't think Lorien really wants us to kill any of the Vorlons, either."

"Yeah," Ginny put in. "It's almost like the Vorlons and Shadows are his children."

"Just slowing them down or annoying them could be our role in this battle," Hermione continued. "We don't know many spells that are deadly or tremendously destructive, anyway."

"Right," Harry agreed. "The guns of these ships can only blast at things. They don't have many alternatives, but we do."

"We don't even know if we'll be able to do any damage to First Ones," Ron added tentatively.

"I've been thinking…" Harry began. He paused, rolling his wand back and forth across the table. "What about the Imperius Curse?"

"Harry, that's forbidden!" Hermione exclaimed, but in a low voice, as though she was worried about being overheard.

"Against humans, yes," he agreed, but Ginny noticed that he was squirming a bit. She wouldn't have been surprised to discover that Unforgivable Curses had been traded by both sides during the battle at the Department of Mysteries. "These aren't human!"

"That's a loophole," retorted Hermione disapprovingly.

"I don't see how it would be that different from a telepath interfering with a Shadow vessel," Harry protested. "It could be even like the Confundus Charm, just sending them off in a different direction for a while."

"It might not even work," Ginny added, trying to find a middle ground. "Even if it did, it would probably only be effective against the Shadows, since they're the ones run by just one intelligent creature."

"Kind of impractical, too," Ron put in, and everyone looked at him curiously, since "impractical" was not a word he generally used. He shrugged under their scrutiny. "I mean, you have to concentrate, right? You could only control one ship at a time, and there'll probably be thousands."

After a little more discussion, the four prepared to return to the bridge. Ginny was surprised, however, when Harry pulled her aside, allowing Ron and Hermione to go on ahead. She looked up at him questioningly.

"Ginny, I just wanted you to know that – I mean, I don't want to go into this without you knowing how – how much I appreciate you," Harry started, stumbling over the words. Ginny felt her heart rate speed up, and she couldn't have found words if she'd wanted to.

"You're brave, and smart, and talented," he continued, his voice gaining a little strength as he went on. "Stubborn, too, but in a good way. Last year, you insisted on coming to the Department of Mysteries, even though Ron and I didn't want you to. I respect you for that, and I don't know what we would have done without you. I – I'm glad you're here. Not that I want anything bad to happen to you, of course, and I know this is really dangerous and all, but it's just nice to – to have you, er, well, you know, here."

It wasn't exactly a declaration of undying love, but Ginny would take it. It was actually quite gratifying to have Harry Potter stammering in her presence.

"Thank you," she managed to whisper. Before she could say anything else, the ship shook. She and Harry exchanged glances, obviously both thinking that the battle must be joined. Together, they sprinted to the bridge to see several dark, spindly vessels streaking across their field of vision. Ginny identified them as Shadows from images they'd seen at the station. Sheridan gave an order, and three of the ships were hit with bright blasts.

The front of the bridge had windows wrapping around so that they could see quite a lot spreading out in front, above and below, and to either side. Lyta Alexander was standing up front directly in the middle of the windows. Her main function was as a telepathic contact with both the Shadows and the Vorlons. Harry and Ginny took up positions one side of her, and Ron and Hermione claimed their spots on the other side.

Lorien was on the bridge as well, which had to mean that Commander Ivanova was back, along with whatever reinforcements she'd been able to bring.

Ginny tried her Reducto Charm, but although the ship she was aiming for shook somewhat, it didn't have the desired effect. She followed up with Confundus, and it veered off its attack vector to be intercepted by one of the allies.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, taking aim at his own target. Ginny risked a glance sideways, wondering what made him use the Disarming Charm. She knew it had served him well in the past, but still…She turned her attention back outwards to see several chunks of a Shadow ship detaching and floating away.

"What the hell was that?" the captain demanded.

"The ship's weapons appear to have…ejected, sir," Linnear explained from behind him.

"Excellent!" Sheridan complimented. "Keep at it!"

The Vorlons soon arrived as well, and Ginny couldn't keep track of what was happening around her. She focused on firing off her spells as quickly as she could while Sheridan tried to talk to the Vorlons in the background. His attempts appeared to be ignored until Lyta turned around. Ginny paused in what she was doing to find out what information she might be conveying.

"They're calling in their other ships," Lyta reported. "All of them." Ginny gritted her teeth and braced herself for the coming onslaught.

Londo gazed up at the sky as the Vorlon planet-killer moved over the sun of Centauri Prime. How could he have been so stupid? Not only did he forget that he'd been influenced by the Shadows and would thus be viewed as corrupted by the Vorlons, but he'd also announced his presence to them. He might as well have painted a gigantic targeting symbol on the roof of the palace!

It was over now. Even if Vir could have brought himself to kill Londo, it was too late. There was no time to get the message to them. Their planet was doomed, and the last thing Londo would think was that it was his fault.

Londo and Vir stood close together beneath the severed head of Morden, watching in horrified disbelief as their end drew near. Images flashed through Londo's mind at a breakneck pace: snatches of childhood, mistakes he'd made, the few happy times, the stolen moments with Adiera, the animosity-turned-alliance with G'kar, the loyalty of Vir.

Until this moment, Londo had not fully appreciated what he was dealing with. The Vorlons were willing to destroy an entire planet just to get him. It was beyond his comprehension. He would have turned himself over to them, sacrificed himself for his people. If only he'd realized the truth in time.

The planet-killer ponderously covered the sun in an artificial eclipse…and kept moving. Londo was sure that both of his hearts would stop as the danger appeared to pass. He drew a few breaths, and the air tasted fresher than it had for a very long time. He didn't know why they had been spared, but he wasn't going to question it.

There was work to do. Once it was done, he would return to Babylon 5, at least for a while. How odd that a place that had once served as an ignominious exile for him now seemed more like home than the planet of his birth. He was actually looking forward to going there.

--

Author's Note: This was where I had to change some things in canon to give the kids a role. I'm trying to keep the main plot intact, though, because I love how Sheridan handles this.

Review responses:

selenepotter: Yes, well, here it was. Most of it, at least. A lot of things took place on Centauri Prime, and others were action that I could gloss over, so I thought it might work to cover most of the episode here.

Stephen DOG Milne: I've heard the Untold Tales are kind of so-so. But since two of the key actors are now dead and others have aged considerably in the interim, I suppose the options were rather limited.

Ranger Aurora: Actually, I had forgotten that fact, but I guess it would make sense. It's not really essential to my story, in any case.

Samael3: Ah, but Ulkesh is gone, isn't he? I thought he was supposed to have disintegrated along with his ship. Although I had Kosh survive, so I guess it's not out of the question to re-introduce him.


	12. Chapter 12: Decisions

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Essentially, the completion of Into the Fire.

**Decisions**

Harry wasn't sure where to look. There were two scenes going on in his mind at the same time. He didn't really understand what was happening, but Sheridan and Delenn had each been grasped in some kind of energy field. Lorien had explained that this was what they were hoping for, and then extended his hands around them. Gradually, images began forming themselves in Harry's mind.

Slowly, he began to make sense of it. Sheridan was addressing the Vorlons, symbolized by a veiled, humanoid figure wearing a Renaissance gown. She appeared to be encased in a transparent, textured block that evoked the idea of ice, although that wasn't exactly what it looked like. Meanwhile, Delenn was talking to the Shadows, who were ever shifting, taking on different forms familiar to her: Commander Ivanova, Dr. Franklin, Lennier, and others. Harry realized that the forms in which these creatures were appearing represented their viewpoints.

The Vorlons believed that perfection had already been attained, and all that was required to maintain it was to remain fixed in place, rigid and unyielding. The Shadows, on the other hand, believed that perfection was an ongoing process rather than a destination. Species could only improve through constant change and adaptation. While Harry personally thought the Shadows were closer to having it right, he strongly disagreed with their attempts to force evolution by creating chaos and artificial challenges to be faced. They claimed that "evolution must be served," yet they apparently didn't trust it to happen on its own.

Both Delenn and Sheridan were arguing against the First Ones' senseless struggle with each other and especially against their using other races as a barrier between them. They proclaimed their new understanding that the Shadows and Vorlons had always had the capacity to destroy one another. They needed the other side to survive, though, so the winners could have witnesses to who was right.

Harry tried to follow all of this, fascinated by the twin exchanges. Ron had been quite right in his analogy to a chess game, although it went a little deeper than that. It wasn't just that both sides were trying to win but that each was trying to prove that its particular _strategy_ was superior. That took precedence, and the younger races were expendable pawns in the effort to establish a dominance of ideology.

Eventually, the Shadows and Vorlons became aware of the mass eavesdropping and grew angry. A slender, long-fingered hand appeared in each image before they dissolved. Harry came back to himself, blinking rapidly. Sheridan and Delenn, freed from their paralysis, immediately went to each other. Both wordlessly asked if the other was all right, but only Sheridan answered verbally that he was fine. Looking around, Harry noticed that he and Ginny had drawn closer together. He didn't remember that happening.

Sheridan was informed that the fleet's jump engines had been shut down. Sheridan tried to make sense of this, wondering aloud if the "parents" were simply intending to leave them to die there, but Lorien said that the First Ones were not quite done with them yet. He gestured toward the bow of the ship.

Two projections appeared: one of a Vorlon in its encounter suit and another of a Shadow. Instinctively, Harry shrank back, trying to blend in with his surroundings and using his body to shield Ginny and hide his wand. He didn't know if the Vorlons were aware of their wayward creations' involvement in this, and he was afraid of getting a reception similar to the one offered by the false Kosh.

Strangely, Harry's scar did not hurt. It hadn't bothered him through this whole battle. While that was a good thing, he couldn't help but be curious about it. He supposed that the lack of atmosphere between him and the Shadows somehow prevented them from affecting him.

The argument between the younger races and the older ones continued. Captain Sheridan surprised Harry by mentioning that he'd never heard the Vorlons or Shadows answer their own questions.

"Who are _you_?" he challenged the Vorlon. Then, he turned to the Shadow. "What do _you _want?" Neither of them had an answer. Oddly enough, this reminded Harry of the question Dumbledore had put to him. Harry now understood why he needed a reason to fight. He didn't want to become like these creatures, opposing each other so long that they'd forgotten their original purpose. The war had become an end unto itself, and Harry knew he didn't want to live that way.

Harry's mind was jolted back to the present when one of the races – he wasn't sure which – decided they could bring everything under control by getting rid of these two upstarts. The First Ones clearly viewed Delenn and Sheridan as the ringleaders and reasoned that they could scare the rest of the fleet by destroying them.

Harry could only stare helplessly as the missile came straight towards them, barely feeling Ginny wrapping both her hands tightly around one of his arms. After all the preparation, it could all end here…but the weapon was intercepted by another ship. Other vessels closed in, willing to sacrifice themselves for their brave, defiant leaders. Delenn and Sheridan did not stand alone, and the whole galaxy seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the outcome.

Hermione disapproved of cursing generally, even though her time spent with Ron was causing her to become somewhat jaded to it. However, she had to admit that Captain Sheridan's closing words to the Shadows and Vorlons felt at once appropriate and effective: "Now get the hell out of our galaxy – both of you!"

Having already demonstrated that the younger races were emphatically rejecting the control and manipulations of their elders, Sheridan's words underscored how complete the separation had to be. The younger races no longer needed to be shepherded, a task the Vorlons and Shadows seemed to have forgotten about long ago, anyway. From a certain point of view, it was analogous to children declaring their independence from their parents. In this case, though, the children could not move out – their parents' house being the entire galaxy – so they were kicking the parents out instead.

At the same time, Hermione recognized that Sheridan's vehement dismissal could be seen as fighting words, and she continued to cling to Ron. They'd been in that attitude ever since the appearance of the Vorlon and Shadow representatives, not knowing what would happen and seeking one another's support to face whatever it was.

It was Lorien who stepped in to break the tension. Even older than the First Ones, he was revered by all of them. In that calm, imperturbable way of his, he informed them that it was now time for them to step aside, as he had once stepped aside for them.

The Shadow's voice sounded oddly plaintive when it asked if Lorien would join them in the "space between galaxies." Lorien acknowledged that he would. It didn't make much sense to Hermione, but it sounded as though these two races had been afraid of being alone, and that was at least part of the reason they had stayed beyond their term of usefulness.

Lorien's agreement to go with them seemed to close the deal for everyone, and the projections of the two envoys vanished to convey this decision to their brethren. The Shadow ships vanished first, followed by the Vorlons. Lorien turned to face the others and addressed them as a benevolent father. He admitted that he was now reluctant to leave as well, but it was time for all of the First Ones, including him and all of those he had helped Ivanova to collect, to depart.

"This is yours now," he announced to the bridge crew, and Hermione wondered if he'd arranged for everyone else to hear this, much as he had with the arguments against the Shadows and Vorlons. He concluded his statements by commanding these younger races to remember that they would also have to move aside in their turn. After that, he gestured to Ron and Hermione with one hand and to Harry and Ginny with another. Obeying the signal, the four teenagers clustered around the ancient alien, off to the side.

"So that's it?" Ginny began, before he could speak. She looked and sounded as though she didn't quite believe it. "We've won?"

"This struggle is ended, but there will always be others." Lorien sighed, looking around at each in turn. "I had hoped to have a little more time to guide you, but I think you can understand that it is more important for me to depart with them."

"Of course we understand that," Hermione put in quickly.

"But what do you mean about there being other struggles?" asked Harry.

"Yeah," Ron added. "I thought the Shadows were causing all this."

"They have not started all wars that have ever been," Lorien reminded them gently. "Besides, you know you must return to a battle in your own time." They all nodded solemnly. A sudden, horrible thought occurred to Hermione.

"There's more to this, isn't there?" she prompted shrewdly. "The Shadows…they're still around in our time. They're involved in that, aren't they?"

For a few, long seconds, the only sound was the background noise of the ship and its crew. Hermione's companions were gaping at her in shock, but Lorien seemed to regard her with a certain pride.

"You are correct," he acknowledged. "They have been influencing certain individuals among your society intermittently for quite some time. It was tracking their activities that first led me to your Professor Dumbledore."

"Voldemort!" Harry exclaimed in a harsh whisper. "That's why my scar hurts around Shadows. I thought it was because something about them was similar to him, but I had it backwards. They were first. He makes my scar hurt because he's influenced by the Shadows."

"More than influenced, I'm afraid," Lorien replied sadly. "He's nearly given himself to them. But your relationship to him is more complicated. He gave you your scar, so that connects you to him as well as signaling when he or his 'associates' are near."

Hermione opened her mouth to ask how he could know about Harry's history with Voldemort. She decided, however, that this was not the proper time for such things and shut it again. Ginny leapt into the breach.

"Do they know what we are?" she inquired. "Where we came from?"

"Ironically, no," he answered her. "They stumbled across you quite by accident. They knew that the Vorlons had taken an interest in your planet, so they did some investigating of their own. I believe they thought it would be useful to have some powerful wizards against the various races of telepaths created by the Vorlons. The separateness of the wizard world provided a perfect opportunity for the Shadows to quietly amass their own genetically altered army. They had no way of knowing that the Vorlons were well aware of your existence, even if they'd ignored you for centuries."

"What about Kosh?" Hermione asked softly, turning to Ron. He frowned as he turned his attention inward.

"He's staying," Ron declared after a moment. "Something about there not being enough of him left to withstand the journey beyond the rim."

"But doesn't that mean he'd be staying behind when he shouldn't?" Harry wondered.

"Not really," Ginny said. "If he stays with Ron, he'll be coming back to the past with us."

"Which means he'll be there almost three hundred years before the rest of them leave," Hermione concluded.

"Hang on," Ron interjected. "These Vorlons live a really long time, right?"

"By your standards, certainly," Lorien agreed.

"Then does that mean there will be two Koshes around for a while?"

"Technically, yes. But they will be far from one another."

"Ron has an excellent point," Hermione contributed. "Are there two of Kosh now? If so, where's the other one?" Lorien hesitated.

"I do not think he survives this long," he hedged. "In any case, he will be able to help you as you struggle against the Shadows of your home." Hermione completely understood his vagueness. It wasn't good for them to know too much about their future. They had not even sought out wizarding kind in this century. Maybe she'd been assuming that they had mostly remained on Earth, which was off limits.

"There's still something you're not telling us," Harry challenged then. "Something about the here and now."

"I'm with Harry," Ginny added. "I have a very bad feeling about this. It just doesn't feel like it's over."

Lorien turned from them briefly, as though considering his options. At last, he turned back, speaking with an intensity that was rare to hear from him.

"You are right, of course," he admitted. "The Vorlons were not the only ones to win over willing allies, but all of theirs are here now, ready to cast them off and fly on their own. The Shadows had their own supporters in the dark corners of the galaxy, and they will feel abandoned. They won't understand what has happened here. The Shadows have always had a habit of hiding ships and weapons on scattered worlds, and they will not have time to collect all of the things they have left behind."

Hermione didn't like the sound of that. She shivered involuntarily, and Ron put an arm around her shoulders, perhaps thinking she was cold. Lorien didn't seem to have any more to say to them, so he withdrew to a distance. His body seemed to…dissipate, for lack of a better word, dissolving into a brilliant mass of blue lights. He exited through the ship's walls, condensing into a twinkling sphere as he made his own, solitary journey beyond the rim.

"Is that what he really is?" Ron asked in awe.

"I suppose so," Hermione murmured in response. It made sense, as they'd already discussed that the First Ones were energy rather than matter. The foursome quietly watched him vanish from sight. Then, the fleet turned to head back to Babylon 5. It was funny, but Hermione was beginning to think of the space station as a sort of home away from home.

--

Author's Note: I wasn't exactly sure how to end this. I've watched the following episode, so I think I have a few ideas for the next chapter. After that, though, I may need to take a hiatus. Writing this story is becoming too much like work. It doesn't flow as well as I would like, but a break might help.

Review responses:

selenepotter: It's not that I'm afraid to make changes, but the fun of fanfiction for me is to create stories so realistic that they actually could have happened.

Ranger Aurora: I know I can change it some, and I did that here, but I like to try and fit my scenes in the cracks so that they actually feel believable. Glad you liked the Expelliarmus effect. It was a crazy idea that occurred to me, and since it's sort of Harry's trademark spell, it made sense that he'd use it.

Samael3: I hope I answered at least some of your questions in this chapter. It was never my intention for the kids to become a Deus ex Machina. The First Ones _got _everyone involved in the first place, so I don't see why they'd be any more offended by a few wizards showing up, even assuming they knew they were there. Is it that different from telepaths, especially Lyta, taking part?


	13. Chapter 13: Doors of the Mind

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: This is kind of a Lyta-centric chapter, or at least deals a lot with telepaths, since I've decided that's going to be the next phase of the kids' adventure. After all, Bester will be visiting the station soon, and that could be fun!

**Doors of the Mind**

Lyta Alexander stared out of the ship's window, watching as Babylon 5 grew steadily larger. She was free now. On the other hand, she felt incredibly alone. Without the Vorlons, she could go back to living her own life, but she was also out of a job. There were no other human telepaths on the station – at least, none that she knew of, though there could be others who had left the Corps and were in hiding. She was different from all of them, anyway. The Vorlons had modified her, granting her abilities she was still testing and exploring. There was no longer anyone who could understand her.

Lyta reviewed her options. Captain Sheridan had already offered her a stipend in return for being available to him when needed. She appreciated this, as it at least took care of her immediate concerns, but she wasn't sure she wanted to limit herself to just one client again. Besides, it felt a lot like charity, even if that wasn't precisely true.

Trying to rejoin Psi Corps wasn't an option at the moment, even if she'd wanted to. The station's break from Earth put her beyond the Corps' reach for the time being. She could always reconsider G'Kar's offer to contribute genetic material so that he could try and bring telepaths back into his race. Of course, her DNA had been altered and might not produce what he wanted.

Clearly, there was no easy answer. Almost in a daze, she exited the Whitestar and headed toward her modest apartment, ignoring the jubilation that went on around her. To her surprise, Michael Garibaldi stopped her on the way.

"Lyta, can we talk?" he asked without preamble. His demeanor was calm, but his posture was tense, and Lyta could sense the agitation within him.

"Sure, Michael. Follow me." She proceeded to her quarters, not bothering to check if he was coming, and opened the door. He followed her inside and looked around, eyebrows raised.

"Are you moving?" he wondered. Lyta was getting very tired of explaining this to people, but she remembered that he hadn't been in here since she'd stripped it down.

"The Vorlon ambassador insisted that I get rid of everything except the bed," she replied, sitting down on the mattress, which lay on the floor. "He didn't want me to be distracted from my work." To his credit, Michael didn't comment on this. He paused uncomfortably before taking a seat on the floor across from her.

"I guess you've got a great excuse to redecorate now," was all he said. Lyta smiled faintly, not having reached that point in her ruminations. He was right, and a shopping trip was definitely in order.

"I guess I do," she agreed. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

"I…I'm not sure how to say this, but I think something happened to me while I was gone."

"Do you remember anything?"

"No, but…something isn't right. I just – I don't feel like myself. I'm afraid that something happened. In here." He pointed to his head, and the reason for her involvement became obvious.

"You want me to scan you." It was not a question.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Try to relax." What else did she have to do at the moment? She looked straight into his eyes and began her search. He sat still, knowing what she was doing but unable to feel any of it. This was one of the blessings of being a mundane, since a deep scan performed on a telepath caused indescribable pain.

Lyta pushed past the surface thoughts, ignoring the memories she encountered. Those were perfectly normal, and she had a feeling that whatever she was looking for would stand out. Suddenly, her mind met resistance.

"I found it," she announced, probing the mental barrier carefully. It was strong and very solid, clearly not anything he could have created on his own.

"What is it?" In his anxiety, Michael nearly broke eye contact, but Lyta didn't really need it anymore.

"It's a sort of wall in your mind, keeping me out of one area."

"Well, can you break it down or something?"

"I think I could, but it might kill you." Lyta was certain she was powerful enough, but the human psyche was a delicate thing. Besides, she didn't have complete control of her powers, and it would be very dangerous to experiment with a person's life until she'd had more time to practice independently.

"I should have known," Michael muttered darkly. "Can you at least tell who put it there?" Lyta hesitated, trying to decide how much to tell him.

"I'm certain it was a telepath," she told him. "Probably a pretty strong one." In fact, she knew that it had to be at least a P-12 – in other words, someone trained as a Psi Cop. At any rate, that would be true if the "teep" were human, which she suspected to be the case. She even had a pretty strong hunch who it was, but telling Michael that Alfred Bester had likely been messing around in his head wouldn't help anything and might even turn the Security Chief homicidally insane. Lyta had seen from his memories that he already had reasons to dislike the man, and Lyta wasn't too fond of him herself.

"I don't suppose you have any idea what's in there?" Michael asked.

"No. I'm sorry. It might just be some memories they wanted suppressed."

"Or there could be delayed commands that I'll have to obey when someone says the right phrase or something."

"It's possible," Lyta was forced to agree. She remembered very well how she had brought out the dormant personality in Talia Winters by sending her a mental password. A powerful telepath wouldn't even need to be that close to Michael to send a trigger, and because it wasn't verbal, no one would be the wiser.

"Well, thanks anyway," he said with a sigh, and Lyta didn't have to be a teep to know he was not happy with the results. He stood up to leave, and Lyta followed suit. "I'll transfer some credits to your account later today."

"You don't have to do that."

"Come on, you're out of a job, right?" He managed a shadow of his usual, self-mocking grin. "Don't worry. On my salary, it won't be enough to insult you." Lyta smiled in spite of herself, glad to see that he was at least attempting to have a sense of humor about the situation, though she didn't need telepathy to know that he was upset. She nodded, and he walked out.

Michael left Lyta's quarters disappointed, to say the least. In fact, to describe his present mood that way was something like calling the Shadow War a skirmish. He'd really been hoping she could solve his problem. To avoid sinking into despair, he tried to attack the issue like he would anything else in his life or his job.

_What do I know?_

_I know I was abducted by telepaths, and they closed off a part of my brain._

_What don't I know?_

_I don't know if the telepaths were human. I don't know what they're hiding behind that wall. More importantly, I don't know why. Did they single me out, or was it just taking advantage of an opportunity?_

These were the things he needed to find out, but he had no idea how to go about doing that. For some reason, Michael found himself wanting to talk to that girl again – Ginny. It was funny how his life seemed to keep leading him to red-haired women.

However, he decided not to try and find her yet. The Shadow War had just ended, and the she and her friends had just as much right to relax or celebrate as anyone else. In fact, maybe he should give himself a break, too.

Besides, Ginny had already said she didn't think there was anything she could do for him. He'd learned a little since then, but he'd try to gather some more information before going back to see if she or one of the others had a new idea.

By the time he'd reached his quarters, Michael had only managed to make one decision. He had to quit his job. He'd get a few things in order for Zack before he sprung the news on everyone. How could he be responsible for station security when he couldn't control his own mind? For all he knew, he might be a danger that needed to be guarded against.

Michael was certain he could find something to do. He had a lot of connections, and people were going to need to find family, friends, things they'd lost. Trying to look at things positively, his independence might even give him a chance to go back to Mars. He hadn't been home in a long time, and it had been hard to get news from there since they broke away from Earthdome. Always find the bright side, right?

God, he needed a drink.

"So, what now?" asked Ron. The four them were in Ginny and Hermione's sitting room, feeling rather at loose ends. At least, that was how Ginny felt, and the body language of her friends and brother seemed to echo that.

"Apparently, we can't go home yet," Harry remarked, holding out his darkened time device. Although they weren't completely certain how this would work, they all more or less assumed that the devices would take them back to Draal's machine so that he could send them home. However, they couldn't do that until they were activated, and the four wizards had no control over them.

"Of course not," said Hermione reasonably. "Professor Dumbledore said we might have to stay for months, and it's only been a few weeks."

"But what's left?" Ginny echoed Ron's confusion. "We got rid of the Shadows and Vorlons, except for the one Ron's carrying around, and the Shadow War is over. I don't get what they need us for now."

"I've got a feeling things are never that simple around here," contributed Harry.

"Wait a bit," Ron interjected. "What if we've got it backwards?"

"What do you mean?" inquired Hermione.

"I mean, what if we're here to help us, not them?"

Ginny openly gaped, and even Hermione and Harry looked slightly stunned. Either not noticing or simply ignoring their reactions, Ron continued.

"Think about it," he went on, and Ginny nearly giggled to realize that he was unconsciously adopting Hermione's lecture mode. "We've learned that the Shadows are involved with our war, and we're taking the Vorlon back with us to help out. Maybe we're mostly here to learn stuff that will help us beat You-Know-Who!"

"We've also found out that we were created by aliens, and that there will be telepaths in our future," Ginny mused. "That might be useful information. Even if our side can't reveal ourselves to them, it seems like it would be good to know to watch out for them."

"They could sense that we're different!" Harry exclaimed. "If they hear some of our thoughts, these telepaths might put things together and discover our whole world!"

"And since they're similar to us in some ways, there's no way of knowing if Muggle-repelling charms will work," Hermione concluded.

"We haven't tried to contact any wizards here," Ron said slowly. "I wonder what our world is like now."

"Or if it even exists," Ginny added softly. There was a pause as they all considered this possibility. Ginny shuddered, thinking that she'd rather not know.

"You know, that reminds me of something I've been wondering about," Hermione remarked, rising and moving to the wall. "Computer, access records relating to the Psi Corps." In the moment that passed while the electronic system carried out the command, Ginny remembered hearing someone use that term recently.

"50,000 records reached," the flat, metallic voice came back. "Continue searching?"

"No, thank you."

Ginny couldn't help but find it funny that Hermione was so polite to a machine, but she didn't comment. Hermione found a "video file" and brought it up, encouraging the others to join her, which they did.

The display that followed told the story of a boy who could hear the thoughts of others. Because of this, he felt like a freak, and when he began answering people's thoughts instead of (or in addition to) their spoken words, the other kids treated him that way, too. His worried parents took him to the Psi Corps, where he was eagerly welcomed, and it was explained how Timmy, or whatever his name was, would be trained and cared for from then on. All parties involved smiled a little too broadly at the happy resolution of his problems.

"Well, that was creepy," Ron commented when it was over. Ginny had to agree. Not only had the whole thing felt overly bright and varnished, but she swore she'd caught flickers that interrupted the stream of images. These flashes didn't last long enough to figure out what they were, but they gave her an unsettled feeling.

"The thing is, I sort of understand how that kid felt," Harry was saying. "When strange things happened around me, it seemed to make me even more of an outsider to the Dursleys than I already was."

Every time Ginny heard about the way Harry's relatives had treated him, she got angry. It was really astonishing that Harry had turned out to be such a good person. Such thoughts would only lead her into dangerous territory, though, so she tried to look at matters from a different angle, one that Hermione might be proud of.

"You know, it's ironic, in a way," she said.

"What is?" Hermione returned distractedly. She appeared to be scanning some more files.

"Well, your aunt and uncle thought they could…stamp the magic out of you through treating you like you were worthless," Ginny answered, addressing Harry and working hard at keeping her tone even. "If they'd tried their best to keep you happy instead, you'd've had less reason to use your powers." Harry gazed at her with an intense expression, and Ginny belatedly realized that he'd probably had no idea she knew so much detail about his childhood. It made her feel like the stalker she'd arguably been when she was eleven. Embarrassed, she reddened and looked away.

"That's a valid point," Hermione rescued the uncomfortable moment as she turned away from the screen. "I was completely shocked when I found out I was a witch. Oh, I suppose there had been a few incidents, but nothing very noticeable."

"Well, if Hogwarts had sent me a film like that, I don't know that I would have been so excited to go there," Harry joked, lightening the mood.

"But it didn't bother you that a half-giant broke down your door?" Ron chortled.

"I was surprised, of course, but he was the only person in the room who remembered my birthday, so I reckoned he couldn't be bad." There was a general chuckle of appreciation at that.

"At any rate, it's clear we're not going to learn anything from Psi Corps propaganda," Hermione came back to the point. "I think we need to go and talk to Lyta Alexander."

"Can't we at least celebrate, first?" Ron wheedled. "Everybody else is, and that might include her."

"I don't know…"

"I think we deserve a little time off," Ginny added her voice to the argument. "What about it, Harry? Would you like to see what modern dances are like?" She surprised herself with her boldness, and though Harry initially looked startled, he quickly brightened.

"Yeah, why not?" he responded.

"Oh, all right," Hermione conceded to the majority. "But first thing tomorrow--"

"We know; it's back to work," Ron interrupted, sporting a small, lopsided grin. He kissed her to make sure she wouldn't say any more. The two "couples" went off to see how people threw parties in 2262.

--

Author's Note: The Psi Corps film was based on the "infomercial" that was actually shown once. I couldn't find the episode it was in, so I had to go by memory, but I recall that there were supposed to be subliminal messages in it like "Obey." I've said before that I'm pretty busy the next few weeks, so it might be a month before I get the next episode posted. Would you like to see a little of the partying, or should I just skip to Lyta and Bester?

Review responses:

selenepotter: I might provide some allusions to the Shadow (and Kosh) involvement toward the end of this story, but I'd always planned to explore that in Part 3. See response to Samael3 below.

Samael3: Whoa! Slow down! The Shadows in Harry's world will be an issue in Part 3 of this trilogy, if I ever get around to writing it. It would entail re-writing most of Book 7 (although I might have the final battle happen in their sixth year to make it more manageable), so it's a big undertaking.

Rainbow2007: Thanks!


	14. Chapter 14: Cultures

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I'm back! After this, I hope to get back to my "one chapter every two weeks" routine. One reader was for and one against the party, so I compromised and just touched on it. Thanks to Ranger Aurora for pointing out to me that the asterisks I was using to separate scenes or perspectives were getting deleted by the system. I'm using a different mechanism now.

**Cultures**

Harry was astonished when they stepped into the Zocalo that evening. The place was packed with people of all descriptions, drinking and dancing. Some of the aliens had separated more or less into their cultural groups. Since Harry and Ginny had found themselves with some time on their hands when Ron had been unconscious during their last visit, they had researched some of the more prevalent aliens on the station, and he was able to identify a number of them.

The Minbari were engaging in a stately dance in which they circled one another in a complex pattern without touching. The Narns had mostly gathered into partnerships of two or three and were doing steps that reminded Harry of certain folk dances he'd seen. The few Centauri present were scattered on the outskirts, mostly sitting or standing at the bars and not really part of the celebration. Harry couldn't help but wonder why they didn't feel entitled to share in this victory.

Meanwhile, humans and Drasi mingled with small numbers of aliens Harry couldn't identify, dancing with abandon in a haphazard manner. The exultation of the crowd was contagious, and Harry turned to Ginny before he had a chance to really think about what he was going to do.

"Would you like to dance?" It was a question he'd never truly asked anyone – the opening dance with Parvati at the Yule Ball had been essentially dictated. The brilliant smile that lit up Ginny's face made Harry's knees so weak that he wasn't sure he'd be able to move, let alone dance.

"I'd love to," she responded, taking his hand and leading him into the throng. Amazingly, Harry's legs did work. They wove in and out among the crowd, trying to learn both the dances of Minbar and Narn before simply flowing into the freestyle of their fellow humans. Ginny picked up on the steps surprisingly quickly, and Harry was impressed. By contrast, he felt slow and awkward, but Ginny didn't seem to mind. She pulled him through the figures good-naturedly, laughing when she forgot something.

Harry caught glimpses of Ron's tall frame and distinctive red hair on occasion and assumed Hermione must be with him, but the two couples mostly remained separated. Harry was actually grateful to have some time with Ginny when her brother was not directly overseeing them.

Sometimes, Harry and Ginny would transfer partners as part of the pattern, but they always came back together like it was the most natural thing in the world. Harry didn't think he'd ever felt so happy or carefree, and he wished it would never end.

* * *

The next day, as the group was heading toward an appointment they'd made with Lyta, Ron was startled when Hermione suddenly threw herself at an alien with a bandage across his mottled head. The bandage was arranged to hide one of his eyes, but the other glowed a vibrant red. Hermione hugged the alien enthusiastically, while he seemed somewhat bemused, patting her stiffly on the back. Ron knew the feeling.

"G'Kar! I heard you'd left the station," Hermione exclaimed. "No one had heard from you, and I was so worried the Centauri had got you!"

"They did," replied G'Kar in a deep but oddly gentle voice. Hermione gasped and stepped back, apparently finally taking in the full impact of his appearance.

"Oh, my goodness," she breathed. "Your eye!"

"They plucked it out," he admitted, in a tone he might have used discussing the weather (if there were weather in space). Hermione's hand flew to her mouth. "Think nothing of it. An eye is a small price to pay for the liberation of my people."

"Your people…you mean--?"

"It's a long story," G'Kar sighed. "I would like to share it with you some time, but I want Mr. Garibaldi to hear it first. Anyway, Dr. Franklin thinks he can get a prosthetic eye for me. I'll be all right."

"A prosthetic eye?" Hermione was getting that inquisitive tone that could lead to 100 questions about technology in this time period, and Ron thought he'd better interfere.

"Come on, Hermione," he urged, taking her elbow. "He's got somewhere to go, and we have an appointment, too."

"Oh! I'm sorry; I didn't introduce you to my friends." She quickly ran through the names, then made a mysterious gesture in which she placed her fists on her chest and bowed slightly toward G'Kar. He responded in kind, smiling a little.

"I look forward to speaking with you again," he said before moving past them on his own business.

"Should I be jealous?" Ron asked, raising his eyebrows. He watched as Hermione's cheeks tinged a very faint pink.

"That's ridiculous," she denied. "He probably doesn't even find human women attractive. Anyway, he came to visit while you were…in Medlab that time. He's the one who convinced me to tell you how much you meant to me."

"He did?" Ron came to a dead stop, forcing the others to wait for him. "Hang on, maybe I should go back and hug him, too." Although he was only joking, he actually made a quarter turn before Hermione rolled her eyes, grabbed his arm, and began hauling him back down the corridor.

"Now you really _are _being ridiculous," Ginny put in, tossing her long hair and striding purposefully out in front.

"Stop looking at my sister's bum," Ron admonished, reaching across his body (since Hermione had a hold of the closer hand) to smack Harry on the side of the head, knocking his glasses askew. Ron had noticed how much attention Harry and Ginny had been paying each other the previous evening, and he'd decided to combine the tasks of keeping an eye out for his sister and having a little fun with his best friend. Harry said nothing as he adjusted the spectacles and slunk up to join Ginny.

"Are you going to do that to them forever?" Hermione demanded. Ron tilted his head, carefully considering the question.

"No," he decided. "Only for a few years."

Hermione did not deign to reply to that, and they arrived at Lyta's quarters without further incident. She welcomed them cordially, if a little distantly, and they stepped in. Ron was astounded by what he saw. There was almost no furniture in the room, a simple mattress on the floor serving as the centerpiece, but there were shopping bags scattered everywhere. The tissue paper erupting from the top of each one indicated that these were all new purchases, not yet opened.

"Are you redecorating?" Harry wondered aloud.

"In a manner of speaking," Lyta answered with a sheepish smile. "I'd offer you a chair, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. Besides, I don't get many visitors."

The four teens gave generic murmurs that they didn't mind and settled themselves onto the floor as Lyta sat on the mattress. Once that was done, however, Ron realized that they had not really worked out a strategy for approaching the subjects they wanted to discuss with her.

"So, how can I help you?" Lyta opened the conversation. Ron knew that she could probably pull everything they wanted to say out of their minds, but she was clearly not intending to do that. There must be some etiquette about that. He remembered that she'd asked his permission before reading his mind on their first trip here.

"Well, I'm not quite certain how best to begin, so I suppose I'll just say it," Hermione began. "You and we…that is, you might say we're related."

"Related? I don't understand."

"The Vorlons made us, too." There was a heavy silence after Hermione dropped that piece of information. Lyta stood up and began pacing.

"You're sure of this?" she asked.

"Reasonably sure," Ginny informed her. "It makes sense, when you think about it. We can both do things other humans can't."

"They were trying to create telepaths, but something went wrong," Ron contributed.

"When did this happen?" Lyta demanded.

"More than a thousand years before telepaths showed up," Harry answered.

"Possibly a lot longer, since the school we go to was founded in 975 AD," Hermione added. "Obviously, there were enough wizards and witches in Britain at that time to justify building it." Lyta nodded very slowly a few times.

"A lot of things fit together, now," she admitted. "You may not know this, but part of my last job was to carry the Vorlon ambassador inside me so that he could witness things that were going on without being seen. I absorbed some stray memories and thoughts that could easily be explained by this."

"So naturally, we're curious about telepaths," Hermione resumed. "We were hoping you could tell us about the Psi Corps."

"What do you want to know?" Lyta asked warily, sitting again on a corner of her mattress.

"Oh, just a brief history, what it's about, that kind of thing," said Hermione. "We looked in the station files, but none of it seemed to be official."

"I can believe that." Lyta sighed deeply. "Okay. Psi Corps started as an Earth Government (Earthgov) organization, designed to keep telepaths grouped together. I guess the non-telepaths thought it was safer that way, that they could keep control over what we did."

"I take it that's not quite how it worked out," Harry commented.

"As far as they were concerned, it did," Lyta responded. "In a way, that's the real irony. They think they're controlling us, when by now, it's probably closer to being the other way around. All telepaths are sent to the Corps as soon as their abilities are discovered. These days, most were actually raised there, as I was. The Corps arranges marriages to continually try to get stronger telepaths."

"Sounds a bit too much like the Slytherin pureblood obsession to me," Ron said, feeling an involuntary shudder pass through him as he recalled the Black family tree tapestry from Grimmauld Place, including the places burned out where someone had made an "inappropriate" match. Although his family was pureblood, too, that had been sheer happenstance, and he knew his parents wouldn't have any objections if he wished to marry Hermione, for example.

Ron felt his ears grow warm as that thought fully penetrated through the layers of his mind. What had made _that_ occur to him, of all things? Hermione cast him a curious glance, but he just shook his head and probably grew even redder at being caught. Now was definitely not the time to talk about that.

"I wonder if that's some sort of inevitable result of having been changed by an outside force," Ginny mused thoughtfully.

"Maybe for humans," Lyta shrugged. "The other races handled it differently."

"How so?" Hermione's curiosity was clearly piqued again.

"You'll have to talk to them to get more detail, but Delenn tells me that telepathy in Minbari is celebrated as a gift. Their telepaths mingle freely with the population and are simply treated as anyone else with a talent, like a great musician. I don't know much about Centauri telepaths, but if they're like other Centauri, they probably offer their abilities in return for wealth or increased social status. The Narns have been without telepaths so long, they may not remember how they fit into society."

"Does every human telepath have to join the Psi Corps?" Ron inquired, bringing their topic back on track.

"There are other choices, but none of them are very attractive," Lyta admitted. "Some children manage to hide their abilities, especially if their parents help them cover it up. The Corps catches up with them, eventually, though, and gives them two choices: join the Corps or take drugs that suppress their telepathy. The only other option is to run."

"I wouldn't like to lose my powers just because I didn't want to be part of the wizarding world," Harry remarked.

"From what I've heard, the drugs also have unpleasant side effects," Lyta agreed. "Psi Corps still basically functions as a government agency, but as you've already guessed, they have an agenda of their own. Their people do what the President asks them to, but the Corps is also used secretly as a means of asserting and consolidating the power of telepaths.

"They classify all telepaths that join them, from P1 to P12, and all are given jobs according to their level. I was a P5, which qualified me for things like economic and political negotiations."

"You're talking like you're not one of them anymore," Ginny put in shrewdly.

"I know," Lyta nodded. "I took the third choice. I left the Corps a few years ago, becoming what they call a 'rogue telepath' or a 'blip.' If I were still one of them, I'd always wear black gloves and a badge with their symbol."

"There's something you're not telling us," Hermione announced. "You're different even from other telepaths, aren't you? During the battle, I saw something happen to you. You spoke with a different voice, and your eyes went all black."

Ron was startled at this revelation. He'd been too distracted by the ships attacking them to register any oddities about Lyta. He now recalled the strange voice she'd used, but he supposed he'd just assumed that the Vorlons were speaking through her.

"That's true." Lyta sounded impressed, but also annoyed, at Hermione's perception. "I originally ran to the Vorlons, and they…modified me. It made me better suited to work for them."

The door beeped, interrupting the conversation, and Ron noticed that Lyta actually looked slightly relieved as she authorized it to open. He had the distinct impression that she wasn't a P5 anymore and that she didn't really want to talk about the changes that had been made to her.

Zack Allan stood hesitantly in the doorway for a moment before stepping in and allowing the door to close behind him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't know you had company." His eyes took in the multitude of bags, but he didn't mention them.

"That's all right, Zack," Lyta said, rising to her feet. Ron and the others followed as though at some unspoken signal. "What can I do for you?"

"Are you familiar with a Psi Cop named Bester?"

Lyta's posture and expression immediately became wary.

"I worked with him for a while when I was still in training," she allowed guardedly. "Why?"

"He's on the station. We don't know what he wants, but he's requested a meeting, and Captain Sheridan was hoping you would come and help out – you know, make sure he's not scanning anyone."

"You do realize that he's a P12, and I'm a P5?"

"Yeah, well, the captain still thinks you can do something against him," Zack shrugged. "We'd be grateful for any help you could give us." Lyta nodded her agreement and moved to follow him out.

"Should we come, too?" Harry asked, stepping forward to be the spokesman of the group as usual.

"I don't know," Zack wavered doubtfully. "The captain didn't say anything about you."

"He didn't know we were here, and I don't think it can hurt for us to come along," offered Hermione. "If he doesn't want us there, we can just leave." Ron cast her a quick glance, knowing that they were walking a thin line at the moment. They needed to know more about telepaths and the Psi Corps, but it could also be dangerous to reveal themselves to one of its agents. They still hadn't had a chance to ask if their own kind of people had been discovered by or even absorbed into Psi Corps at some point.

"Fine with me," Zack agreed, and they all let him lead the way.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope this wasn't too disjointed. I kept getting interrupted while doing my last read-through. Bester's up next, and I still have to figure out what his exact role will be in this.

Review responses:

Stephen DOG Milne: I recall there were several of those messages, but I made it work without knowing the specifics.

Samael3: I think the patience and kindness comes with age, at least partially. Well, the techno-mages are actually cyborgs and use advanced technology rather than innate magical ability. It might be interesting to see them interact with true wizards, but I don't know if I'll get around to that.

Rainbow2007: Thanks!

Zeen: I tried to show a little of the celebrating without distracting too much from the story.

Ranger Aurora: Sorry, but I had to set some things up first. I think we'll get to Bester in the next chapter.

Olaf74: Thank you very much! I try to keep up on this in between my other projects.


	15. Chapter 15: Psi Cop

A Weasley Baby

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I'm sorry I'm so late with this update. My husband lost his a week and a half ago, and that kind of turned our schedules all around.

**Psi Cop**

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Lyta began expressing misgivings as Ginny and the others followed her and Zack through the corridors. "To Bester, I'm just another blip. He'll want to arrest me."

"The captain won't let that happen," Zack assured her. "You're under his personal protection. Besides, according to the newscasts, we're supposed to be under quarantine from Earth ships. Bester isn't even supposed to be here, so I'm guessing he's not, officially." While Lyta didn't seem completely mollified, she let the matter rest, and Ginny filed away that last piece of information for future use.

The table was already nearly full when they reached the conference room, with Captain Sheridan sitting at the far end. He indicated that Lyta should take the seat to his left even as he raised his eyebrows at her unexpected entourage. Ginny let Zack explain their presence as she looked around. Zack was standing behind one empty seat as though readying himself to sit in it. Also present were Commander Ivanova and Dr. Franklin. The remaining seat at the end opposite the captain was clearly for Bester.

"Shouldn't Chief Garibaldi be here?" Ginny asked suddenly, feeling that the situation was wrong without him. The station officers exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"Mr. Garibaldi has just resigned his post," Sheridan replied. "Mr. Allan will be taking over his duties. Now, it might not be a bad idea for you all to see this meeting, but I don't want you to be seen just yet. Do we have time to put them in the next room with a secure feed of what's going on here?"

"I think so," Zack nodded.

"Do it. Lyta, can you shield them, too, so Bester won't know they're eavesdropping?"

"Not a problem," she answered confidently. In a few minutes, Ginny and her friends had chairs pulled up to a monitoring screen, and the officers were all seated. Another man entered who had to be Bester, and Ginny studied him carefully. His age was difficult to determine, as his hair was dark and his face relatively unlined, but his bearing and attitude spoke of the experience of an older man. He was dressed all in black from his neck to his feet, including the gloves Lyta had mentioned earlier. He also wore a badge with the Psi Corps trident emblem.

Lyta's earlier concerns proved to be justified when Bester started by saying that it was an embarrassment to try to stop him with a mere P5. Furthermore, he had every right to take her back with him as a rogue telepath. Ginny felt her jaw drop in astonishment when Sheridan retorted that he could just as easily nail Bester's head to the table and set it on fire. Bester, too, seemed taken aback at the captain's vehemence, although he quickly recovered his aplomb.

"But it's an imperfect world," the captain concluded. "So neither of us is going to get exactly what we want. Sit down." The tone of the command was unmistakable, so though he was clearly not accustomed to taking peremptory orders like this, Bester sat.

The rest of the conversation was confusing to Ginny. She did her best to follow but felt like she was in some kind of mental haze. Glancing at the two boys a few minutes in, she saw that their eyes were glazed over. Only Hermione stared in rapt attention, drinking in every word. Ginny couldn't completely suppress a smile. Her friend could be exasperating sometimes, but her capacity to focus was probably going to serve them well in this case.

At any rate, Ginny gathered that Bester had made some kind of deal to pass on information to Babylon 5. She couldn't figure out what he was getting out of it, but he was obviously demanding a higher price this time. He wanted to go to Z'Ha'Dum. Ginny shuddered involuntarily. She'd already been there once and had no desire to see it from any angle again. However, the captain gave his word that this would happen, so what followed was a description of what seemed to be a very convoluted plot to shut down Babylon 5 for good. Ginny didn't even pretend to be well informed on the rift between Babylon 5 and Earth, but she knew instinctively that this wasn't good. Her opinion was reinforced by the mention of President Clark's involvement with the Shadows. She had learned on her previous visit that President Clark was the leader of all of Earth and its colonies. The entire world (plus space stations and other planets) all being under the rule of a single man was still a difficult concept for Ginny to wrap her mind around. She wondered, not for the first time, how the wizards fit into all this.

At one point, Bester put a hand to his head as though he were experiencing a headache or a dizzy spell. When asked, he denied anything was wrong, but Lyta looked at him with a self-satisfied smirk, and Ginny guessed that Lyta was interfering with Bester's abilities more than he would have thought possible.

Once everything was agreed upon, Bester was dismissed. The officers remaining discussed preparations for the upcoming journey. Ginny assumed that their little group would be summoned again shortly, but in the meantime, they talked about what they had seen.

"I didn't understand half of that," Ron announced, shaking his head. "Probably more."

"Same here," Harry agreed. "What was that all about?"

"Well, I admit it went by a little fast, and there's some background we clearly don't have, but I think I got the gist," Hermione put in. Without waiting for an invitation, she launched into her translation. "Some telepaths were apparently…damaged by the Shadows during the war. Bester has some sort of interest in them, so he's passing on information in exchange for the Babylon 5 doctors and scientists working to help with whatever's wrong with them."

"So Zack was right," Ginny remarked. "Bester isn't officially here."

"Exactly," Hermione agreed, nodding. "He came without orders or even permission, but he's in a position where I doubt too many people question where he's going or why. Whatever the modern-day 'system' is, he knows his way around it."

"Okay, but why can't he just take the hurt telepaths back to Earth?" Harry frowned. "Wouldn't it be more likely to find people and technology to help them there?"

"Weren't you listening?" Hermione sounded exasperated, and Ginny suppressed a grin. "The President was working with the Shadows. He probably gave orders for…well, for whatever happened to them. Bester can't let on that he knows about them, let alone their location or condition."

"Since Earth and Babylon 5 aren't getting along, it's pretty likely they weren't meant to end up here," Ron added thoughtfully.

"Right. They must have been intercepted somehow," Ginny said, mind working furiously to put it all together. "I don't think it was planned, but Babylon 5 must have captured a ship with cargo headed toward the Shadows."

"They just weren't expecting the cargo to be human," Harry concluded, shuddering. "Especially telepaths."

"What would Shadows want with telepaths?" Ron asked then. "I thought they hated them. Didn't you say they'd wiped out all the Narn telepaths?" The last part was specifically addressed to Hermione.

"Yes, but it's obvious, isn't it?" Hermione said, using her superior tone. "They wanted to use them as weapons, to counter the telepaths Vorlons had seeded on several worlds."

While they were all mulling over the ramifications of that, they received the invitation to return to the conference room. Ginny couldn't have explained it to anyone, but she had a feeling in the back of her mind about Garibaldi that was bothering her. It just seemed too convenient for him to have resigned on the very day that Mr. Bester arrived on the station. She couldn't shake the idea that Bester was somehow involved with what had been done to Garibaldi's mind. He hadn't even commented on the Security Chief's absence, but since he'd been to the station before, he should have expected Garibaldi to be there. Things just didn't add up. Or rather, they did, but not to a sum Ginny liked.

Still, there was nothing she could do about it at the moment, so she resolved to focus on the present.

--

Hermione was still re-ordering events in her mind as they returned to the conference room. Only Sheridan remained seated there, having sent the officers on various duties to act on either Bester's information or his request. He also dismissed the security escort that had brought the kids back. Now that the chairs were free, the young wizards could sit down, so they did.

"So, any thoughts on what you saw?" Sheridan asked without preamble.

"I don't particularly want to go back to Z'Ha'Dum," said Ron bluntly, giving Hermione no time to shush him. The captain gave a tight smile.

"Neither do I," he admitted. "I will, because I gave my word, but I don't see any reason for you to come along."

"Are you sure?" Harry sounded worried, and Hermione thought she saw his point. Since they didn't know exactly what their functions were in this time and place, it was dangerous to assume that anything was unimportant.

"Yes," said the captain decisively. "We're just going to quickly go there, look around, probably find nothing, and come home."

"And you don't want to have to introduce or explain us to that guy," Ron added perceptively.

"That, too," Sheridan conceded unapologetically, offering no further detail on that.

"I don't like Mr. Bester," Ginny announced then, steering the conversation onto another subject. "I don't trust him, either."

"Join the club," Sheridan remarked. "I don't think anyone here is very fond of him."

"Yeah, we rather guessed that when you mentioned nailing his head to the table and setting it on fire," said Harry lightly. His comment broke the tension of the moment, and they all laughed a little.

"Well, you have to be very direct with some people," the captain excused his strong language.

"Oh, I know all about that," Hermione returned archly, casting a sideways glance at Ron.

"Very funny," Ron retorted, glowering at her. However, he couldn't hold the pose and ended up grinning instead. "I seem to recall it took you an awfully long time to get to the point."

"Yes, well, I suppose I can't learn _all _lessons rapidly." Knowing that their banter was straying from anything Sheridan would be interested in, she came back to the main topic. "I'm afraid I didn't completely follow all of the political aspects of the situation. Earth wants to shut down the station?"

"Yes," Sheridan responded. "We're a threat because we're not under President Clark's control, we're in a strategic location, and we have considerable resources at our disposal. Now that the Shadows and Vorlons aren't around to distract us, we're free to turn our attention to him."

"Is that what you were planning to do?" Ginny put in.

"It was something we were going to have to deal with eventually," Sheridan sighed heavily. "It's not pleasant for any of us here to fight our own people, but we can't stay cut off from our home world forever, and it isn't right to leave our family and friends there under Clark's tyranny."

Hermione decided not to pursue the details of that tyranny, and the others were speaking before she could formulate another question.

"I don't understand," Ron was saying. "Can't Earth just order the station to be shut down?"

"Or blow it up?" Harry added. Leave it to him to think of the extreme situation. Sheridan was shaking his head at both of them.

"He can't do either of those things," he replied. "First of all, we've separated ourselves from Earthdome and don't recognize Clark's authority. Even if we did, this station is a joint venture. Shutting it down would require the agreement of the Earth Alliance, the Centauri Republic, the Minbari, and probably the Narns, now that they've won their independence back.

"For almost the same reason, Earthdome can't shoot us down. If it were just humans, Clark could give that order as a part of the civil war. No other race would get involved. All kinds of aliens live here, though, and he really can't afford an interstellar incident right now."

"So what exactly _is _he trying to do?" Ginny asked.

"I mean, we understand the propaganda part," Harry added hurriedly, and Hermione briefly reflected that they'd all seen more than enough propaganda for one lifetime. "It's the Phase 2 that I think we're not completely clear on."

"It's more of same, really," Sheridan sighed. "They're trying to make us look bad. This method is just more aggressive. Earthdome is going to have a squadron of elite fighters attack one of the blockade groups. The plan is to leave none of them alive and claim that the wreckage is our doing."

"So what are you going to do?" Ron wondered.

"Well, now that we know the timing and what we're looking for, I think we can come up with a good counterstrategy," Sheridan responded evasively. Hermione knew that he didn't want to give out details, and she thought she could appreciate that. She further guessed that the plan had been decided, and that Ivanova had most likely been sent to carry it out.

"What about those telepaths you were talking about?" Hermione hoped she could get just a little more information before Sheridan had to rush off to his ship. "We figured out that the Shadows wanted them for something, but we don't know what."

"Or why Bester is willing to take such a risk for them," added Ginny.

Sheridan sat back in his chair and tapped his fingers together as though trying to decide how much to tell them. Finally, he made his decision and leaned forward.

"You know that the Shadows used sentient beings to operate their ships, right?" he began, answering a question with a question.

"Yes, and that telepaths can disrupt them," said Hermione, nodding.

"Well, the Shadows thought they could get around that problem by using telepaths. The ones we mentioned were altered to be used in their ships." The explanation dropped into the room like a lead ball.

"Oh," murmured Hermione, not able to think of anything else to say. At any rate, she was doing better than the others, who almost appeared petrified.

"One of them happened to be the woman Bester loves," Sheridan continued. "I'm sure he also doesn't like to see telepaths used as tools. He sees them as his kind, separate from people like me. Anyway, we tried to wake the woman once before, but the modifications made her draw all technology toward herself. It was almost like she needed it, like food. She would have taken over the entire station if we hadn't found a way to knock her out. As it was, she corrupted a sizeable section of the main computer." There didn't seem to be any more to say on that, but Harry cleared his throat to speak.

"What do you want us to do while you're gone?" he wanted to know.

"Talk to Garibaldi," the captain suggested. "He's been acting a little strangely ever since he got back. I don't have the official capacity to demand explanations anymore, but he seemed to get along with you. Maybe you can find out what I can't." Or don't have time for, Hermione guessed, although he didn't say it. She didn't begrudge him the excuse, however, knowing how much he had to deal with. She wondered how much time he'd really had for Delenn since returning from the dead.

"We can do that," Hermione agreed. She and Ginny had already discussed some of their suspicions about the former Security Chief, but it would probably be better to wait to voice them until they could make a full report, not to mention that Sheridan's attention wasn't fully on them at the moment.

Seeing that they were dismissed, Hermione herded the others out of the room. There were many things crowding her mind, among them a growing sense of dread about Bester. However, she wanted to be alone before she sounded her friends out about it.

--

Author's Note: I'm not sure this was the quality I'd hoped, but I'm a little distracted right now.

Review responses:

Samael3: I adore Galen, so I'll bring him in if it seems feasible, but I'm not sure yet.

Ranger Aurora: I decided not to have them meet just yet. Maybe just before Bester leaves, to give him something to ponder during his journey home.

Korraganitar the NightShadow: Actually, all of my stories on the Harry Potter page except Missing Fluff have even fewer reviews than this one. My theory was that there were so many new postings all the time that it's too easy for one to get lost.

The Robatic Master: I was not aware of that history of Techno-Mages, although they seem to have pretty much gone off on their own. As for the rest, well, you'll just have to keep reading and see.


	16. Chapter 16: Conversations

A Weasley Baby

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: This chapter's a little longer than usual because there were a lot of things I wanted to cram into it. I doubt anyone will complain about that.:)

**Conversations**

"Maybe Mum's right," Ron mused on their way back to the girls' room. "Muggle technology is nothing but trouble." He was thinking about the unspeakable things that had been done to those telepaths, as well as other creatures the Shadows wished to use, but he knew he'd made a mistake when Hermione glared at him.

"One could just as easily look at Voldemort and conclude that magic is all bad," she snapped, practically throwing her card into the slot to open their door.

"I'm sorry," he apologized quickly. Those words were already becoming almost reflexive. "I didn't mean it."

"I have no way of knowing if it's true or not, but I think Bester was doing more than bringing information," Hermione began after casting various security charms around them. "He was bringing orders to that fighter squadron."

"What?" Ron heard himself say, and he heard an echo of at least Harry.

"Well, think about it," she urged. "The pilots are attached to the Psi Corps. He's got to be pretty high up in the ranks there. It also gave him an excuse to be in this sector and the time he needed to drop by Babylon 5. He gave the orders to attack the blockade, knowing that he would then pass on those orders to Captain Sheridan."

"So he's sending those guys to their deaths?" Ron guessed.

"Probably," Hermione agreed darkly. "Sheridan has to do _something,_ and an attack is the most likely option." There was silence for a while as they considered that.

"He must really love that woman," Harry concluded finally.

"I hope I never love anyone that much," Ron replied. He turned to Hermione. "I mean, I love you, but I'd like to think I wouldn't kill other people for you, especially if you weren't in immediate danger." From what he could figure out, the telepaths were in a kind of suspended animation, sort of like Hermione had been second year. That certainly hadn't been pleasant to witness, but at least he'd known she was alive and that there was hope of her recovery.

"I wouldn't want you to," she assured him gently.

"Well, that's interesting, and different from what I came up with," Ginny joined the conversation at last. "Did anyone else notice that Bester didn't ask why Garibaldi wasn't there? As far as he knew, Garibaldi was still Chief of Security. He should have been there for the meeting."

"I did think that was odd," Hermione admitted. "You think he expected his absence?"

"We know someone's been messing with his head," Ginny shrugged. "Who better than a telepath, especially a strong one?"

"Awfully coincidental that Sheridan also wants us to talk to Garibaldi," Harry put in. "Do we tell him?"

"It would be easier if we had proof," Ron mused. "But I don't know how to get it."

"We'll have to play it by ear," said Ginny. "I want to tell him about my suspicion, but I don't know how he'd react to that. On the other hand, maybe we can think of a few ways to help him if we're right. That way, he wouldn't have to know."

"I think we should split up," Hermione announced. "We have too much to do in a short time. I'd like to all be together when this expedition to Z'Ha'Dum gets back. Ginny, you've already established a rapport with Garibaldi, so you should go talk to him. Harry, since you've had some training in Occlumency and Legilimency, go with her."

"Fat lot of good it did me," Harry muttered, but he nodded his agreement. Ron frowned.

"Where are you and I going, then?" he wondered.

"I want to go and get G'Kar's story," his girlfriend replied. "I thought we could offer to buy him a drink or something."

"A drink of what? I don't know if you've noticed, Hermione, but he's an alien."

"Well, he must drink _something._ We can find out," she said brightly. There was no arguing with her when she was in this mood, so after they'd all had some lunch and made respective arrangements, Ron found himself walking beside her, carrying a bottle of viscous, orange liquor. Hermione had said it wasn't suitable for humans, so she'd brought some water for the two of them. Ron was relieved at this. He wasn't against experimenting with something he recognized, like firewhisky, but sampling alien grog went a trifle beyond his adolescent curiosity.

The first thing that struck Ron upon entering G'Kar's quarters was that it was quite dark. It wasn't just that it was dimly lit, but all of the furniture also seemed to be in dark shades. He and Hermione stood for a moment after the door closed behind them, allowing their eyes to adjust.

"Lights to 70 per cent," G'Kar's voice sounded, and the increased lighting revealed the alien's shape as he rose to greet them. "Delighted to see you again. Please have a seat." They did so after presenting the bottle. He poured it into a glass and did not seem surprised or offended when Hermione poured water into the remaining two glasses that were set out. He took a long drink.

"I really am very curious about how your capture led to your people's freedom," Hermione prompted.

"It is somewhat convoluted," G'Kar acknowledged, turning the glass in his hand. "Well, as I believe you already know, Marcus and I went together to seek out Mr. Garibaldi. We got separated, and Centauri soldiers overpowered and captured me. They took me to Centauri Prime. Londo Mollari was there. Have you met Mollari?"

Ron and Hermione shook their heads.

"Well, here's to your good fortune," G'Kar toasted them and took a sip of his drink. Obediently, if rather uncertainly, Ron and Hermione returned the gesture. "Unfortunately, he's returned to the station, too, so that may not last."

"Who's Londo Mollari?" Ron decided to ask, in case an explanation was not forthcoming.

"He is the ambassador from the Centauri Republic to Babylon 5, but his ambitions have always extended much farther. He may have succeeded now beyond his wildest dreams. It's possible that he'll be named the new emperor soon." Oddly, G'Kar seemed to find this amusing.

"A republic with an emperor?" Hermione asked.

"Let's not get distracted by politics," Ron interjected, not wanting to get off on a tangent before they'd even heard the story they'd come for.

"Indeed," G'Kar laughed, nodding. "Yet that's what this story is ultimately about, isn't it? Politics."

Ron wanted to say that he didn't know because he hadn't heard the bloody thing yet, but he managed to restrain himself and wait for the Narn to continue.

"Well, as I said, Mollari was there," G'Kar resumed his narrative. "The emperor gave me to him as a gift, to do with as he wished. However, that didn't prevent him – the emperor, that is – from torturing me by every method he could conceive. I believe he found it entertaining."

"Oh, dear!" Hermione gasped, gripping Ron's arm.

"The loss of my eye was not the worst of it, but I'll spare you the details. To tell the truth, a lot of it is hazy to me, too. Anyway, Mollari made a deal with me. The mad emperor had allowed Shadows to conceal vessels and other technology on Centauri Prime. Mollari knew that the Vorlons were making their way through the galaxy, destroying all planets bearing a Shadow taint. So, he took advantage of my presence to come up with a plan. It was a fair enough exchange, I suppose – he got to save his people, and I saved mine.

"When Narn was independent, I was a member of the ruling council, the Ka'Ree, in addition to acting as ambassador to Babylon 5. Therefore, I was considered a prominent figure among my people. As you know, that also made me much sought after by the Centauri. Mollari therefore suggested to the emperor that it would be perfect to carry out my execution on Narn, where all of my people could see the absolute power of the Centauri Republic.

"The emperor thought this a splendid idea, so we went to Narn while Mollari plotted to kill the emperor."

"Kill the emperor?" Hermione echoed. "But how would that help anything?"

"It was everything, as you shall see. It didn't go quite as planned, but I caused a diversion to set things into an uproar. Mollari and his adjunct, Vir, managed to get the emperor alone for long enough to do what they needed to. I gather that they used a very subtle poison that made it look as though the emperor, young as he was, had had a heart attack. Centauri have two hearts; did you know that?"

Both Ron and Hermione shook their heads. They'd hardly had leisure to study alien biology, even if it had been a subject that interested them.

"It's strange, really, when many of my people would call them heartless," G'Kar went on, wry amusement showing on his face. "Anyway, the Centauri are a very superstitious people, for all of their pretensions and technological advancement. Mollari told them that their emperor's untimely death was surely a sign from the gods that they were displeased with the Centauri occupation of Narn. Added to the general expense and trouble it was to maintain order on my home planet, he easily convinced them to withdraw.

"So, I was hailed as a hero, and Mollari evidently managed to salvage his home world as well. Yet, we have both returned here. I have come to escape the adulation of my own people. I don't care to guess what he's running from." G'Kar drained his glass and filled it anew in the silence that followed.

"That's quite a story," Ron remarked, feeling that someone ought to say something.

"I suppose it is at that," G'Kar mused. "These things are never quite so exciting when you're living through them. But I don't think I need to tell you that."

"I reckon not," replied Ron emphatically. He thought of all the things that had happened to him since becoming Harry Potter's best friend, meeting the Acromantula looming largest in his thoughts, and realized that all of those adventures would probably make good stories, but they hadn't been much fun at the time. He took a drink from his glass.

"So, are you two mated now?" G'Kar asked bluntly. Ron choked on his drink, swallowing about half of the mouthful down before going into a coughing fit to expel the rest out of his lungs. Hermione pounded him helpfully on the back.

"You could say that," she answered, and Ron was almost as startled by her degree of calm as he had been by the original question. He took a few breaths and swallowed hard, trying to find his voice.

"But – we aren't – we haven't – I mean…you know what I mean!" he exclaimed.

"Ah, yes," murmured G'Kar, nodding with understanding. "I am aware that humans often engage in a lengthy courtship ritual. Is that your situation?"

"Exactly," Hermione acknowledged. "You seem to know that the ritual is not always, er, strictly observed, but we're following it. We're also considered quite young for our species."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it, anyway," the Narn declared. "You took my advice?"

"I did," she admitted, looking at Ron sideways. Now recovered, he reached over to grasp her hand, genuinely grateful that she had followed that advice. G'Kar raised his glass to them again.

"All happiness to you both," he said heartily. That was a wish Ron could happily drink to.

--

Meanwhile, Harry and Ginny sought out Garibaldi. He allowed them in but seemed distracted. In that direct way of hers, Ginny asked the former security chief why he had resigned. He gave reasons that sounded rehearsed, and Harry could tell that Ginny wasn't buying any of it. Neither was Harry, when it came to that.

"I guess I picked a good time to quit," was the response when Garibaldi was told that Bester was on the station. "Better Zack than me to deal with that ass." Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance, and Harry knew they were thinking about the same thing – how much to tell him.

"Have you found out any more about what was done to your mind?" said Ginny obliquely, avoiding the central issue for the moment.

"A little," Garibaldi allowed guardedly. "I know a telepath put some kind of barrier in my head, locking me out of parts of my own brain. Talk about an invasion of privacy."

"We have a few suspicions about who it was," Ginny admitted.

"What? Who?" Garibaldi demanded, and from the immediate response, like he was ready to spring into violent action, Harry judged it best not to tell him the whole truth yet.

"We think it was someone highly connected in the Psi Corps," Harry broke in smoothly. He knew he was skirting dangerously close to the truth, and Garibaldi might guess the identity they were hiding. "We need to do some more investigating. We're not even sure yet whether it was done by them officially or unofficially."

"So what am I supposed to do in the meantime?" demanded Garibaldi with barely suppressed rage. "Just let some unseen telepath pull my strings like a puppet?"

"What makes you think that hasn't already happened?" asked Ginny pointedly. Garibaldi just gaped at her.

"Don't you think it's just the slightest bit convenient that you resign the very day Bester shows up?" Harry added.

"You think he did this to me?" Garibaldi asked angrily, and Harry cursed himself mentally for letting that slip.

"Like we said, we're not sure," Ginny covered for Harry admirably, although she threw him a glare that he felt he fully deserved. "But if it was an official act of the Psi Corps, he might have known about it and used whatever was planted in you for his own purposes."

"Well, I can't go back to my job now," Garibaldi objected. "That would look too weird."

"Yes, it would," Ginny agreed. "You'll need to carry on as though you still knew nothing."

"We were hoping we might be able to help you," Harry went on. "It might take some time while we try a few different things." Garibaldi met his gaze with a mixture of hope and wariness. He sat down at a small table and gestured for the two of them to sit as well.

"Lyta said it could kill me if she tried to break down the barrier," he told them. Harry met Ginny's eyes, hoping to find some guide as to how to answer that. Since Lyta had been modified by the Vorlons, it was possible that she didn't have complete control over her abilities yet and didn't want to experiment with something this delicate.

"We have some methods that are a bit more…subtle than what she might be capable of," Ginny explained carefully. "No guarantees, of course, but we'd appreciate the chance to try." Garibaldi glanced back and forth between Harry and Ginny a few times before nodding slowly.

"Okay," he agreed. "As long as you can promise me I'm not going to lose my mind or anything."

"We'll be careful," Harry promised.

"Harry, can you start with performing Legilimens on him?" Ginny asked, taking charge with a businesslike air.

"I can try," said Harry doubtfully.

"Wait – what's that?" Garibaldi interrupted.

"It's a little like a telepathic scan," Harry explained briefly, and Garibaldi gave him permission to continue. Harry drew his wand, centered himself, and cast the spell. He had to struggle to keep hold of his identity as random images raced through his mind: a boy playing amid red sand, a red-haired woman, empty bottles, faces of people in uniform. Finally, he found what he was looking for.

"I've got it," he told Ginny. "It's like a solid wall, blocking something off."

"All right. Stay focused on it," Ginny instructed him. "Try Finite Incantatem." Harry frowned, not thinking that was the right charm for the situation, but he couldn't see any harm in it.

"Finite Incantatem," he repeated obediently, concentrating on the wall. "Nothing happened," he reported.

"Well, I didn't really expect it to be that easy," Ginny admitted. "Any chance Occlumency could work?"

"I doubt it," Harry replied. "That's supposed to prevent someone from entering your mind. Trying to use it now would be a bit like closing the gate after the sheep had escaped."

"And something as blunt as Accio Memory is likely to be too dangerous," Ginny concluded. "I think we're going to need Hermione's help for this, and possibly some additional research. I'm sorry, Mr. Garibaldi."

"Well, if you're going to be messing around in my head, I'd prefer if you knew what you were doing," Garibaldi said as Harry withdrew from his mind.

"Just go on with whatever you were planning to do, and stay available to us," Ginny suggested. "We'll need to be able to see you when we figure something out."

"Just keep me posted," Garibaldi nodded.

"We will," Harry promised, and he left with Ginny. She had sounded very confident about their ability to help Garibaldi, but he wasn't. The last time he'd managed to free someone's mind from another's control, he'd simply had to destroy an enchanted diary. Not that it had been easy, but this present situation was much more complicated.

Harry glanced over at Ginny, wondering if Garibaldi's situation was recalling her own ordeal for her. As much as she seemed to have put it behind her, Harry fervently wished she hadn't had to go through it at all. He didn't think he would ever forget the sight of her lifeless body on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. He wanted very much to put his arm around her right now, to reassure himself of her warmth and vibrancy, but he resisted the impulse.

--

Author's Note: Someone earlier had suggested trying Finite Incantatum, but I didn't want it to be that simple. While telepaths have similar genetic material to wizards, their abilities don't work in quite the same way.

Review responses:

Samael3: I may have to look those books up at some point. Thanks.

selenepotter: I figure that Hermione has no way of knowing of G'Kar's tastes, since he hasn't told her, and we know he's unusual among his species. Bester will be back, and the kids are going to try their hardest to free Garibaldi from his control.


	17. Chapter 17: Striving for Solutions

A Weasley Baby

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

**Striving for Solutions**

"This isn't going to be easy," Hermione fretted after Harry and Ginny had reported on their visit to Mr. Garibaldi. She was sitting on the floor of Ron and Harry's sitting room with several books open around her. Occasionally, she made notes on a sheet of parchment with her quill. "It's a bit like a modified Memory Charm, and you saw from Professor Lockhart how difficult those are to undo."

"We don't exactly have years here," Ron sighed, getting that crease between his eyebrows that Hermione privately thought was really cute. He and the others were ranged around the room in chairs with books of their own, assigned by Hermione.

"Do you think you can help him?" Harry pressed.

"I'm certainly going to do my best," Hermione answered. "I just can't promise it will be good enough." She swept the books, parchment, and quill away from her immediately vicinity so she could stand up and began pacing the room. Sometimes it helped her think.

"I have the feeling this is really important," Ginny added.

"What, like it's one of the reasons we're here?" Ron inquired quickly. Ginny and Harry exchanged a glance and shrugged simultaneously.

"I don't know," Harry responded. "But I agree with Ginny."

"This is a really delicate thing," said Hermione, half to herself. "It will probably work best if we come up with some combination of a potion and a charm or two. Potions are often much better at affecting the mind than spells, at least for a short time. The problem is, there's no way to find all of the ingredients."

"Why not?" Ron interrupted her musings. She stopped where she stood and turned to face him.

"We don't exactly have the Hogwarts supply cupboard at our disposal," she pointed out impatiently. "I haven't seen anything like Diagon Alley here, either."

"There is the Zocalo," Ron persisted. "Hermione, there are aliens from dozens of worlds right here on this station. There's bound to be some things they've got that could have the same effects."

Hermione just stared at him, flabbergasted. Then she practically threw herself on top of him and kissed him soundly.

"You know, you're really brilliant when you put your mind to it," she informed him from her new position on his lap.

"I'll try to be brilliant more often," he promised, looking slightly dazed. His eyes came suddenly back into focus a moment later, and he tilted his head as though listening to something. "Kosh says he might be able to help us with some of the theory on how to get rid of a mental barrier, but he doesn't know exactly how our abilities work." Hermione nodded acknowledgement.

"Well, the Zocalo gives us a place to look for potion ingredients, but it doesn't answer how we'll know what does what," Ginny put in.

"Right," agreed Harry. "I've seen enough of salesmen to know they can't be trusted to tell the truth. At best, they'll exaggerate."

Hermione stood up again, smoothing her clothing as she began pacing again. They were both right, of course, and they couldn't very well just poll the various aliens of each species to find out what they knew about their native herbology. However, the answer presented itself to her readily enough.

"Dr. Franklin!" she exclaimed. "I read that he's a specialist in xenobiology."

"Zena-what?" said Ron in a confused voice.

"Xenobiology. The study of species other than humans. That's how he got this job. That must include knowing their own herbal remedies for things."

"How are we going to get in to see him?" Ginny wondered. "He always seems awfully busy."

"I think we may have to ask Captain Sheridan to get us an appointment," sighed Hermione. Although she hated to ask favors of him, she couldn't see any other way. "First, though, we've got to figure out what we need, so we're not expecting the doctor to tell us everything he knows in one interview."

"That could take days," Harry complained.

"You have something better to do?" retorted Hermione brusquely, raising her eyebrows. She could actually feel Ron suppressing his own grumbling. Harry's time frame was likely correct, but the task wouldn't get done any faster by discussing it. First, they had to find possible potions to try. Then, they needed to compile those into a list and narrow it down to perhaps three or four most likely candidates. Finally, they would make lists of the necessary ingredients and their properties so that they could present that information to Dr. Franklin.

"I guess we'd better get started," Ron announced gamely, and four quills set to work.

--

Several hours later, Harry's hand was getting a cramp, and he was just about to suggest taking a break when a loud, repeated beeping sounded from the region of the computer console, making them all jump.

"What's that?" Ron demanded. Hermione calmly went to the console and tapped a few spots, and the sound stopped.

"I requested an alarm notification when Sheridan's Whitestar approached the station," she replied. "We had no idea how long their trip was going to take."

"I expect that means we should go," said Ginny, and from the surreptitious way she was flexing her hand, Harry guessed that she was about as happy for the excuse to stop their note-taking as he was.

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "We should just have time to get to the docking bay by the time they're ready to disembark."

The four of them made their way to the proper place, and Harry was very grateful that Hermione had obviously research the route because he hadn't a clue where they were going.

When they arrived, Hermione gestured them into the shadows beneath other space vessels. Harry was mystified by her behavior. Why did she insist upon them being here if she didn't want to be seen? Certainly, Sheridan had not yet given permission for them to meet Bester face to face, but Hermione must have some reason for wanting to see this.

First came the Minbari crew, including Lennier. They were eerily quiet, and Harry noticed that they had a way of walking quickly while still giving the impression that they had nowhere in particular to go. There was a slight lag before the rest of the ship's passengers disembarked. Bester was in the lead, wearing an expression of utter hopelessness and devastation. It was the most human Harry had yet seen him. However, as he passed by where the kids were, Bester suddenly stopped, raising his head curiously.

Harry held his breath. Bester knew they were there and apparently sensed them as something different than what he was used to. Desperately, Harry tried to recall his Occlumency, emptying his mind of all conscious thought. He wished he'd had the chance to teach the others, but maybe they knew enough from what he'd told them to manage. Bester swiveled his head toward them, but soon moved on, either too distracted or disinterested to pursue the matter. Harry breathed a soft sigh of relief and looked at the rest of the passengers.

Sheridan looked annoyed, well on his way to outright anger, although he was keeping it well contained. He strode along purposefully, not much caring whether anyone could keep up with him. Lyta's face was a smooth mask, revealing nothing, and Delenn simply looked worried. She trailed behind a little in her preoccupation, and Hermione dared to reach out and pluck at her sleeve. Delenn took in her breath sharply, turned her head, and saw them. She moved a few steps toward them, trying not to make it too obvious.

"What happened?" asked Hermione in a whisper.

"It's gone," Delenn replied, shaking her head helplessly.

"Gone?" Harry echoed. "What's gone? The technology?"

"Z'Ha'Dum. The whole planet. It's gone."

"That's good, isn't it?" was Harry's first impulse.

"What? How?" exclaimed Ron at almost the same moment, and Hermione frantically shushed him. Delenn glanced toward her retreating companions.

"My quarters. Half an hour." With that, she was gone.

"Well, that was singularly unenlightening," complained Ginny as they exited the docking bay.

"Not necessarily," Hermione disagreed. "I think we needed to be here, to talk to Delenn if nothing else."

"Bester felt us," Harry interjected. "I don't know how, but I think he knew we were something… different."

"Different, like he recognized what we were, or different like something totally new?" Ginny asked quickly, and Harry thought he understood where she was coming from. She both hoped and feared that Bester might have come into contact with wizards before.

"It was hard to tell," Harry admitted. "He seemed surprised and…confused. I'm not sure what that means."

"Considering that we don't know what we're doing here, we sure are awfully busy," Ron groused, and Harry had to concede his point. Between all of these meetings and the research, they were definitely keeping themselves occupied. The question was whether they were occupied with what they were supposed to do or just trying blindly to find some meaning.

Harry would have sworn that it wouldn't take them much less than half an hour to reach Delenn's quarters, but Hermione indicated that they'd have a little time on their hands before their appointment.

"I suggest we get something to eat," said Ron predictably.

--

Hermione led them unerringly to Delenn's quarters, precisely on time, naturally. It felt very homey to Ginny. It was the first place they'd stayed on the station, and while that was part of it, Delenn's presence also seemed to contribute to the atmosphere. On a slightly more selfish note, Ginny did take a moment to wish that their quarters had true water showers like Delenn's.

"So, what happened to Z'Ha'Dum?" she asked Delenn, once they were all seated with tea.

"It appears that something triggered a self-destruct command," the ambassador replied, still seeming a little agitated. "It was fortunate that John's instincts told him to retreat before the planet exploded. The blast blew us backwards as it was."

"What – what could do such a thing?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Both the Shadows and Vorlons had the technology to destroy a planet, as you have seen, so there is no great mystery there. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the Shadows might have set up a way to destroy all of their technology so that no one else could use it. As to the trigger…" Delenn trailed off, paused, and sipped her tea. "John is talking to the person he believes to be responsible."

Ginny was afraid to ask, but Ron did it for her.

"Who?" he said. Delenn didn't answer directly.

"John thinks that only a very powerful telepath could have sent the appropriate signal through hyperspace."

"Lyta," concluded Hermione.

"But why?" added Harry.

"Obviously, she didn't want Bester to get what he was after," Ginny said, and she couldn't really say she blamed her. On the other hand, Lyta might be punishing those frozen telepaths, too, and that seemed unnecessarily vindictive.

"That isn't what really worries me," Delenn confided, shaking her head in a manner that was almost, but not quite, human. "There were ships leaving the planet, probably warned by an alarm system. They must have been allies of the Shadows, but we have no way of knowing who they are or what kinds of weapons or other technology they might have taken with them."

It felt as though a leaden weight had fallen in the room, pulling everyone's mood down with it.

"So, to sum up," said Ron, counting off his points on his fingers. "There's a hostile telepath around that might be on one side or another depending on the situation; a rogue telepath with unexplored powers and an agenda of her own; and a group of unidentified aliens with Merlin knows how many ways to blow stuff up."

"Merlin?" Delenn's forehead was furrowed in confusion. "I do not know this Merlin."

"Don't worry about that," Hermione assured her. "He's an ancient figure from history that wizards often refer to in times of stress." Delenn's expression cleared.

"I think I understand," she said. "I would say, 'In Valen's name.'"

"I…suppose," Hermione returned, not seeming sure, but since Ginny didn't know who Valen was, either, she couldn't help.

"Good summary, Ron," Harry put in. "But you forgot the former security chief whose mind isn't completely his anymore."

"And the civil war brewing with Earth," Ginny added.

"Do we need to worry about the dead Centauri emperor?" Ron asked. Delenn held her hands out in supplication.

"Please stop!" she requested plaintively. Her fingers then went to rub her head on either side, just in front of her ears and below her bony ridge. "One thing has been clear since I first came to Babylon 5. It is never dull."

"That's for sure," Harry agreed fervently.

"Did you say something about Mr. Garibaldi?" Delenn asked then, clearly catching up mentally with what Ron had said. Before anyone could answer, the door beeped. Delenn stood and asked who it was, ordering the door to open when she discovered it was John – that is, Captain Sheridan.

"Was it her?" Delenn asked him with no other introduction. Sheridan glanced briefly at the kids, but at Delenn's almost imperceptible nod, answered the question.

"She didn't say it straight out, but it was pretty clear she did it."

"Well, what's done is done," sighed Delenn resignedly.

"At least no one will be using Z'Ha'Dum as a base anymore," Ginny tried to look at the positive side. Delenn and Sheridan sat down, and Ginny and Harry filled the captain in on what they'd learned or suspected about Garibaldi. They held nothing back from him, having decided he was one person they needed to be completely honest with. When they were finished, he sat thoughtfully, steepling his fingers in front of him while Delenn rested a hand on his arm.

"I should have known," he muttered finally. "Bester always tries to cover every angle. I'm not sure I see his advantage yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. You think you can help Garibaldi, though?"

"I believe so," Hermione nodded. "It won't be easy, and we'll need some time. At least two days to figure out what we need. At that point, we'd like your help to get us an appointment with Dr. Franklin to get his expertise. After that, maybe a few more days to get all the ingredients together."

"Ingredients?" Sheridan held up a hand to forestall any answer almost before the word was out of his mouth. "Never mind; I don't really want to know. Just do what you can and keep me posted. I'll make sure Stephen finds time for you in his schedule. As far as I'm concerned, this is your main priority."

"For us, too," Harry assured him. Ginny didn't know why he seemed to share her insistence that this was important, but she was glad for his support.

Sheridan dismissed them, so Ginny and the others left the couple alone and returned to their task.

--

Author's Note: I'm sorry if it seems like this is moving slowly. I'm trying to pull all of the information together and lay groundwork for later chapters. I've pretty much covered the "Epiphanies" episode, and the next one is focused on the ISN interviews, which should give me a lot of time to play with.

Review responses:

Samael3: It's Liselle (credit to David Eddings for his delicious character in The Mallorean), and this story is getting too long already. Don't expect Ulkesh to reappear.

Stephen DOG Milne: Um, the show only had five seasons, not six. It would be interesting to see who would visit the four kids on the Day of the Dead, though.

selenepotter: Possibly, but I don't plan on them being there through the whole thing.


	18. Chapter 18: Progress

A Weasley Baby

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I'm really sorry this is late. The three-day weekend sort of put me behind.

**Progress**

Al Bester had a lot to think about as he piloted his ship back to Earthdome. Foremost in his mind, of course, was his utter failure to speed up Carolyn's recovery. With the destruction of the Shadows' home world, he was unlikely to get any additional help from that quarter. Any surviving technology would get scattered across the galaxy. Worse, his present situation left him still indebted to Sheridan and the others at Babylon 5, and he had no illusions that they could feel any sympathy for his plight. He certainly wasn't capable of feeling any for them. They were only mundanes, after all.

Lyta Alexander, however, was another story. He didn't know what had happened to her, but she was obviously not a P5 any longer. He knew she'd spent time with the Vorlons – it was his business to keep track of children who'd left the family – and he found himself just itching to find out what else she could do. Bringing her in by force was not likely to work, but perhaps a deal could be reached. It was something to consider for the future.

This led him to the other thing that was on his mind. When he had returned to the station after the ill-fated excursion to Z'Ha'Dum, he had sensed four distinct presences. They felt human, mostly like any other mundanes he'd encountered, yet with a vague impression of untapped potential within them. He'd never experienced anything quite like it. Even more curious, one of the minds had seemed to fade away just after he'd detected it. Shortly after that, he was blocked completely, indicating that Lyta was again using her abilities against him.

Bester wanted very much to investigate these mysterious individuals further, but he couldn't inform Psi Corps about them because he wasn't supposed to have been at Babylon 5 at all. That left it up to him and meant that he would also have to put off any decisions about Lyta. He decided that he would have to devise a reason to visit the station again fairly soon. It was distasteful and tiresome to contemplate, but there were too many questions to leave unanswered until the civil war was over. Bester felt certain that the four strange humans must be secret weapons of Sheridan's. Having already tipped his hand about Lyta, it would make sense for Sheridan to keep something back. It was what Bester himself would have done.

At last, a grim smile appeared on the Psi Cop's face. He had a secret weapon of his own. There was always more than one path to any goal, and his backup plan was already unfolding.

He wouldn't let Carolyn down.

--

By the midpoint of the second day of research, the kids were starting to run out of potions books, so Hermione set herself and Ginny to researching charms while the boys continued to note potion ingredients. This suited Ginny nicely, since she much preferred Charms to Potions, and she thought she was better at Charms. Of course, the respective professors might have had something to do with that.

"Ginny, I want you to look into making up a new charm for this," Hermione instructed the younger girl on the day following the reassignment.

"What?" Ginny looked up, surprised. "A new charm?"

"Why not?" Hermione returned reasonably. "Somebody had to have invented all of the spells we use. It must be possible."

"All right, but why me?"

"Professor Flitwick told me you're the best in your year in Charms. You're the logical choice."

Ginny felt her face warm at the compliment and cursed her Weasley complexion. She deliberately did not turn to check whether the boys were paying attention to this exchange.

"But – but I'm surely not as good as you," she tried to protest further. Hermione smiled in a self-deprecating manner.

"I thought you'd have realized by now that I'm only good at memorizing and comprehension," Hermione replied. "I haven't the imagination you have to come up with something new." She paused and tapped her cheek thoughtfully. "Actually, Harry's shown himself to be really creative, too, even in the midst of battle. Why don't you two work together and see what you can come up with? I'll help Ron narrow down the list of potions."

Ginny couldn't decide whether Hermione were trying to throw Ginny and Harry together or just wanted an excuse to be close to Ron. Either way, or even if she'd been honest in the reason she gave, it did nothing to lower Ginny's body temperature when Harry came to sit beside her. However, the past two years of learning to act normally around him came to her rescue, and she was able to maintain her external equanimity.

"So…any idea how we're supposed to do this?" Harry whispered, opening one of the books he'd brought.

"Not really," she confessed. "Theoretically, magic can do anything you can think of. The words are primarily a focus, though they usually relate in some way to what you're doing." Harry pondered that for a moment.

"So, I guess what we should try to do is find charms that do something similar to what we're looking for, and modify them a little?"

"More or less," Ginny agreed, and they set to work, heads close together.

"Here's a Disintegrating Charm; what do you think about that?" Harry suggested. "To break down that wall in Garibaldi's mind?"

"I don't know," mused Ginny, reading over the description. "It seems a little uncontrolled. What if we disintegrate things he really needs?"

"Oh. Yeah, you're right." He seemed so crestfallen that Ginny felt compelled to say something encouraging.

"The word, or part of it, might still be useful later, though," she said. "Go ahead and write it down."

"Hey, how about Alohamora?" Harry suggested a short time later. Ginny thought it over.

"If you focused your thought enough, that might work," she nodded agreement. Suddenly, she was struck with inspiration and began flipping through one of the Charms texts. "And we could combine it with that charm for freeing bonds." She pointed to the page triumphantly, and Harry looked over her shoulder.

"First open or weaken the barrier, and then free the thoughts inside," he spelled out the strategy. "That just might work."

"It's not quite enough, though," added Ginny. "Whatever's trapped in there, we may not want it…them…whatever just roaming through his mind freely." Harry sat back, frowning as he considered the problem.

"I've seen Professor Dumbledore draw memories out of his head to put them in a Pensieve," he said thoughtfully. "We don't have one of those, but there must be a way to pull the unwanted things out. I just don't know where we'd put them."

"I've never even seen that done, let alone tried it," Ginny confessed. "Anyway, the memories of those two weeks shouldn't be a problem, and we can probably let him keep them. What we'll want to get rid of are any implanted commands."

"That's true. I've no idea if the same technique would work."

"Which raises another problem." Ginny raised her voice to get the attention of the other pair. "Hermione, we're getting a little nervous over the fact that we won't have any way to practice this until we actually do it."

"Right," Harry added his voice. "What if we mess him up permanently?"

"It is a difficult situation," Hermione conceded. She pondered, and then brightened. "What if there were a way for you to practice, on someone you couldn't hurt?"

"What are you thinking of?" said Ginny.

"We could ask Lyta if she'd help us," replied Hermione. "She must know how to build a wall in her head, and she'd know how to protect herself in case you overdid it."

Ginny and Harry looked at each other. That just might work. Of course, it still didn't solve the problem of how to deal with whatever might lurk behind the barrier, but it was a start. In any case, it seemed likely that some of those subtle instructions were already leaking out. It suddenly occurred to Ginny that this meant there was some non-invasive way to activate them. They weren't looking to activate these things – de-activate would be a more appropriate word – but they might be able to learn something from that technique.

"There is one other thing," Harry put in. "Are you planning to put Garibaldi to sleep for this?"

"I wasn't planning on it," Hermione frowned. "I thought we'd need him conscious to determine whether or not our efforts were working. The only potions I was looking at were to relax the mind or make it more amenable to alterations."

"It might not be a bad idea to have a sleeping draught on hand," suggested Harry. "Or even a Muggle anesthetic of some kind."

"I'd rather keep it to something I can control instead of a drug a doctor has to give him," answered Hermione. "May I ask why we need it?"

"If there are commands in Garibaldi's brain, we don't know what they are," Ginny pointed out. "We might set them all free, and Merlin only knows what the results might be."

"You think he might go barmy?" Ron contributed. "Attack us or something?"

"It's possible," Ginny shrugged. "Whatever's been done to him has already led him to quit his job and stop trusting Sheridan."

"We just think it's a good idea to be prepared," added Harry.

"You're right," said Hermione, nodding. "I'll make sure to add some ingredients for that. It might be difficult to get him to drink it if he becomes violent, but with any luck, we won't have to use it at all."

--

It was a few hours later when Hermione announced that she and Ron were ready to go and see Dr. Franklin about their ingredients. They contacted Medlab to let him know they were coming, and since virtually no time for him was noticeably better than any other, they left shortly thereafter.

This left Harry and Ginny alone together, and Harry was both excited and nervous by the prospect. He hadn't taken advantage of their last mission to Garibaldi, but maybe it was time to stop letting these opportunities pass him by.

"So what should we do?" he began.

"Well, I don't know," Ginny responded, stretching out her arms and flexing her wrists. "Do you think we have enough ideas for charms to use?"

"Whether we do or not, I think we deserve a break," he said, perhaps a trifle too casually. "Would you like to go get something to eat?"

Ginny looked startled, possibly wondering, even as he was, if this could be considered a date. Harry's heart was in his throat as he waited for her to answer.

"I do think better on a full stomach," she replied slowly, that amazingly brilliant smile blossoming over her face. "Where should we go?" Harry actually had to pause to let the elation at her acceptance dissipate before he could answer.

"I'm not sure," he said, and he thought he sounded relatively normal, except that he was breathing more rapidly than was strictly necessary. "How adventurous are you feeling?"

"Pretty adventurous." The sidelong glance and grin that accompanied this pronouncement were enough to make Harry's stomach burn. He couldn't help wondering what he'd been asking and what she'd accepted. However, his voice was steady and he even managed to smile as he offered the name of their destination.

"The Zocalo it is."

--

"I still don't really like being here," Ron admitted as he and Hermione made their way through the Alien Sector after their meeting with Dr. Franklin. It always reminded him of that run-in with the Shadows.

"We were just at Delenn's a few days ago," Hermione reminded him. "That didn't seem to bother you."

"I just didn't say anything. Who are we going to see again?"

"Ambassador Mollari. Dr. Franklin said he has a habit of keeping…interesting plants."

"Isn't that the one G'Kar warned us about?" Ron searched his mind to remember that conversation.

"Yes, but so what? If he has what we need, we have to see him."

"He just killed his own emperor," Ron reminded her.

"Bother that. He sounded an awful, bloodthirsty tyrant, anyway. You wouldn't distrust the person who did away with Voldemort, would you?"

"Seeing as it's supposed to be Harry, of course not," Ron gave in. "All right then."

"Here we are," Hermione announced, stopping in front of a door and checking the small computer in her hand. Ron had learned that this was called a "handheld." His father would be utterly fascinated.

Hermione rang the bell, and they waited. Shortly, an overweight man answered. He had a round face, very bristly eyebrows, and brown hair pulled away from his face and somehow fixed as a crest at the back of his head. It looked to Ron like it would take an immense amount of Sudley's Hair Immobilizer to accomplish that.

"Can I help you?" said the man politely in American English.

"We're looking for Ambassador – that is, Prime Minister – Mollari," Hermione explained.

"You can call him Ambassador. I think Londo would actually prefer to forget about the other title for a while. Anyway, I'm his assistant, Vir. Are you the ones Dr. Franklin told me about?"

"That's us," Ron confirmed. Vir inclined his head and ushered them in.

"Ah, welcome, welcome," said another figure, rising from a chair at a desk. "I am always happy to meet new humans. I believe I missed you the last time you were here." His hair was, if possible, even more extraordinarily high in the air than his associate's, black with a white streak on either side. His eyebrows were also black and broad enough to be the wings of a sparrow. They spread over small eyes and a large nose that reminded Ron of Buckbeak. Oddly, where Vir spoke perfect English, the ambassador had a definite accent. Ron couldn't quite place it, but it struck him as similar to Eastern Europeans he'd met.

"Is he always this happy?" asked Hermione in an aside to Vir. The question was pertinent, as the smile the ambassador gave them bordered on maniacal.

"No," the aide answered nervously, and no explanation was forthcoming. Formal introductions were made, and the ambassador invited them to sit.

"So, what is it I can help you with?" Mollari addressed them.

"We're seeking items that have certain properties," Hermione explained delicately. "Dr. Franklin indicated that one or two plants native to your planet might do, and he thought we should ask if you happen to own any of them." She showed Ambassador Mollari the notes on her handheld.

"Actually, the ambassador's interest in botany tends to be limited to…recreational applications," said Vir somewhat apologetically as Londo perused Hermione's notes. Ron wasn't entirely certain what that meant, but Hermione nodded understandingly.

"Ah, but one man's meat is another man's poison, yes?" Londo interjected. "Isn't that what you humans say?"

"That is a common phrase," Hermione conceded. "And it's entirely possible – likely, even – that an herb could have one effect on humans and quite another on Centauri."

"Exactly so!" Londo seemed more excited than necessary about this point of agreement. "It so happens that I have one of these plants, the Krondash. How much would you need?"

"About six leaves," answered Hermione.

"What would you want in exchange?" Ron interrupted. He knew just enough about station politics to know it was unlikely that the ambassador would simply grant this as a favor.

"A sharp one, yes?" Londo appeared more pleased than offended by the question. "I am in a generous mood at the moment. I only want to hear your story. This is not too much to ask, is it?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. Ron wanted to ask how much of the story they should tell, but he swiftly realized that it wouldn't do to give away the fact that they might be leaving things out.

"It's a bargain," Hermione agreed, and she began to tell the tale. Ron settled back into his seat to listen, trusting that she would know the best way to edit it. He hoped Ambassador Mollari would think to offer them some food before this interview was over. Hermione had scarcely allowed him a snack before starting on their errands, and he was starving.

--

Author's Note: It's occurring to me that I really need to figure out how to end this thing. No, I'm getting there, and I already have an epilogue in mind.

Review responses:

Samael3: There will be a little peripheral involvement with the news crew and one major change. In general, I think I'm intending to be a bit more subtle than your suggestions. That's just the way I am.

Stephen DOG Milne: I was going to put it off, but as you can see, I did work Londo in. I hope I didn't make him too odd, but I was sort of following from the giddy way he acted towards Zack when he arrived on the station.


	19. Chapter 19: Rehearsal Dinner

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: I've noticed that I'm starting to break the chapters up a little more as I'm trying to cover more information. I actually like it because it makes the writing go faster. However, I'm running out of good chapter titles.

**Rehearsal Dinner**

Ginny and Harry strolled around the Zocalo for a while, trying to find something palatable to eat. Although Ginny had said she was feeling adventurous, she had to admit to recoiling a little at some of the bill of fare presented. She also learned, to her disgust, that some aliens could not eat anything that hadn't been dead for three days. She could understand the value of carrion eaters in an ecosystem, but quickly discovered that she didn't want to be anywhere near their food source on a space station.

"I wouldn't if I were you," said a voice over Ginny's shoulder a little later as she was eyeing something that looked like a cross between a squid and a jellyfish. She turned to see Zack.

"We'd be happy for some recommendations," Harry invited. "We're willing to try something new, but food poisoning doesn't sound so good."

"I hear you," Zack agreed, grinning at them. He didn't linger but did suggest a couple of likely places before heading off to his duties. He seemed to have taken to his new role pretty well. Ginny and Harry settled on a comfortable-looking booth run by a blue-skinned Drasi. When the food came, they sat regarding it for a moment.

"Are we sure we want to do this?" Ginny asked, raising her eyebrows at Harry.

"I learned to eat and drink some new things when I entered the wizarding world," he reminded her, smiling. "I think I can handle this." With that, he took a large bite. Not to be outdone, Ginny followed suit, but with a more ladylike mouthful. It was actually quite good, some kind of meat in a sweet sauce and garnished with vegetables.

They were mostly focused on their meal while eating, not talking much. Ginny wasn't sure whether it was really that much work to eat or they were just nervous about being on their first official date. Granted, there had been the dancing last week, but that had been more or less as friends. For that matter, Ginny still wasn't completely sure _this_ wasa date, so she was playing it casually.

After they'd finished their lunch, the couple was not too anxious to resume their work, so they wandered around looking at the various items on display. There were so many strange and incredible things there, even for someone used to the wonders of Diagon Alley. Ginny and Harry took turns questioning the shopkeepers about their wares, showing equal curiosity. It occurred to Ginny that Harry would probably be a better student if he didn't have so many things distracting him from his schoolwork. She hoped that someday he would actually get to pursue a normal life.

The young couple even ran into Garibaldi, who appeared to be using the public area to start up his new business.

"How are things going?" Ginny asked of him.

"As I thought, there are a lot of people needing things," he replied, walking with them for a short time. "I have quite a few customers already, and I'm gathering information. Eventually, though, I'm going to need to leave the station to follow through and earn my fees." He looked inquiringly down at her, but Harry was the one who answered.

"We should be ready for you in two or three days," he shrugged. "If you have a trip that will get you back by then, you shouldn't have to worry about delaying our…work." Ginny knew this was a total guess on Harry's part, since they didn't know yet what Ron and Hermione would need, let alone how long it would take to get it. Still, it was probably a pretty good estimate.

"Great. Just leave a message at my quarters when you want to set up an appointment." Garibaldi sounded wholly the competent businessman as he took his leave, and Ginny marveled at the change in him. He acted contented enough, but she suspected he was experiencing more inner turmoil than he let on. After all, in her first year at Hogwarts, no one had guessed that Ginny was being possessed by a diary. Even after she began to realize that she was experiencing blackouts and feared that her missing time was somehow connected to the attacks that were happening, she hid her suspicions.

At one point in their meanderings, Ginny's hand brushed against Harry's. He didn't pull away, instead lacing his fingers with hers but looking at her questioningly as though to make sure it was okay. She smiled in response, earning a smile back. However, it was only a minute or so later when his attention was caught by something he saw over her head. He muttered something under his breath and released her hand quickly. Curious, Ginny turned and saw Ron and Hermione entering the area. Inwardly, she groaned, certain that Hermione would put them back to work straightaway. Even as she considered the possibility of ducking out of sight, it became too late. Hermione had spotted them and was already bringing Ron along to join them.

"What are you doing here?" she asked brightly, at least not looking or sounding like she was going to accuse them of laziness.

"We were hungry," Harry began.

"We decided we couldn't think very well on an empty stomach," Ginny added.

"Us too," Ron interjected. "And I still am, if no one else is. Want anything?" The question was addressed to Hermione, who gave a brief order and sent him on his way.

"Well, shall we find a table?" Harry suggested to Hermione. "Ron would have no trouble eating while walking or standing, but you might like to sit down to a proper meal."

"Right, good idea," Hermione agreed and wasted no time in taking charge of that task. Ginny caught Harry's eye, and he shrugged apologetically. Although it may have been silly, Ginny was elated that he seemed just as unhappy to be interrupted as she was, and she filed that piece of information away.

--

"So we thought we'd come here and buy the ingredients that are available," Hermione concluded later, after catching Harry and Ginny up on the outcomes of her interviews with Dr. Franklin and Ambassador Mollari. The ambassador sounded to Harry like quite a character, and he wondered if he'd ever meet him.

"Do you think you'll find everything you need here?" inquired Ginny.

"I don't really know," Hermione replied. "I haven't begun shopping yet."

"We ran into Garibaldi earlier and told him that we wouldn't be ready for him for a couple of days," Harry reported. "He might leave the station in the meantime. I hope that's okay."

"That should be fine," she assured him. "Even if everything is here on the station right now, the potions will take some time to prepare. Remember how long the Polyjuice Potion took?" Harry remembered all too well, and he nodded.

"You mean we might actually get a break?" Ron added hopefully. He'd long since finished eating, of course, and was amusing himself by folding a napkin into various shapes. He didn't seem to expect an answer, and he didn't get one.

"Do you need our help with the shopping?" Ginny offered. Hermione pushed her plate back and tilted her head thoughtfully.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "Maybe it would be better for you two to get back to your charms."

"I think you need us more right now," Ginny insisted. "This is a big place, and we took the opportunity to walk around and see where things are. We could really speed things up."

"Besides, we should have a couple of days to keep working while you're putting the potions together," Harry added, proud of himself for maintaining his composure. As far as he knew, they'd just been fooling around. If Ginny were actually thinking ahead while they were touring the Zocalo, she'd made no mention of it.

"Oh, and why am I the one you're assuming will brew the potions?" Hermione demanded. Ron rolled his eyes.

"Maybe because you're far and away the best of us at doing it?" he remarked.

"Well, if that's the reason…" Hermione acknowledged with a long-suffering sigh, but she glanced sideways at Ron, and Harry knew her well enough to recognize that she was pleased with the compliment.

"Personally, I'd be happy for you two to help looking for the stuff we need," Ron continued, gesturing at the area around them. "The list isn't short, and this place is enormous!"

"We'd love to," Ginny assured him, neatly closing the deal before Hermione could come up with another objection. Hermione tore her list into portions and handed them out. Since Harry and Ginny had already spent some time exploring, they provided initial directions to Ron and Hermione. After that, the two of them stayed together for a while, assisting each other's memories about what was where. Harry, for one, was glad that their date didn't have to end just yet.

--

Later, with everything assembled that could be found and orders placed for the remaining items, Hermione sat down at a table in her quarters and began sorting her ingredients while Ron helped with preparations like chopping and measuring that could be done ahead of time. Harry and Ginny sat across from them, continuing to fine-tune their part of the affair. They'd arranged to meet with Lyta tomorrow to try out some of their ideas, deciding they were close enough for that.

"I'm still not entirely sure how this is going to work," Harry admitted to Ginny. "Do you think you can master Legilimens in just a few days?" That got Hermione's attention. From Harry's descriptions, Legilimens could be an intensely personal spell, and if the two of them were going to practice it, there could be some interesting results.

"I doubt it," replied Ginny, shaking her head. "Besides, I'll need to be concentrating on the charms rather than getting into the mind and finding what we're looking for. I think we'll have to do a tandem spell."

"A what?" Harry said.

"A tandem spell. You'll actually be casting Legilimens, but I'll be sort of riding along. That leaves me free to have the charms ready when we need them."

"I understand the theory of that, but I've never tried it," Hermione said almost wistfully. She hadn't thought of that possibility, but she tried not to be jealous that Harry and Ginny were going to be trying this out. After all, nothing said she couldn't practice it just for fun.

"Neither have I," added Harry.

"Mum and Dad do it all the time," Ron put in, waving with his chopping knife for emphasis. "It's perfectly safe. I'm sure you two won't have any trouble with it." Hermione glanced sharply in his direction, wanting to ascertain whether he'd really just compared Harry and Ginny with Arthur and Molly. Did that mean he was okay with their potential relationship? His expression, however, was completely innocent, and she concluded that he was oblivious to what he had just implied.

"Can't you also use that to cast the same spell together?" Hermione thought she remembered something about that.

"Right," Ginny nodded. "It's supposed to be more powerful with two wizards behind it."

"Well, why doesn't everybody do spells like that, then?" Harry asked, his brow furrowed. "Wouldn't that be a better way to fight? We're in sixth year and haven't even been taught that!"

"It's not that simple, mate," Ron explained. "You can't do tandem spells with just anyone." As he said this, he caught Hermione's eye, and she realized from the twinkle in his blue eyes that he wasn't quite so oblivious as he'd appeared. She stifled a smile. It was really incredible how much Ron had matured in the last couple of years, and she was proud of him.

"Yes, the two people have to have some kind of personal connection," added Hermione to what Ron had said. "And there has to be physical contact, which isn't always practical." Ginny reddened at these requirements, although she surely already knew about them. Nevertheless, her voice was steady and matter-of-fact when next she spoke.

"It also tends to take longer to cast a spell," the red-haired girl concluded. "That's not good in a battle situation." Harry nodded, but Hermione could tell by his expression that his mind had already moved in another direction.

"It still seems like a good thing to use against Death Eaters," he mused. "They're not exactly team players. Could you do it with more than two people?" Hermione started, marveling again at his ability to see things differently from everyone around him.

"I suppose," she answered him slowly. "They'd all have to know each other, obviously, and they'd have to be able to do the spell without a wand so they could join hands. Why?" He shrugged.

"Just thought it might be useful is all. Well, I reckon we'd better do some practicing," he said, turning to Ginny. "How about we both try something simple, like the Levitation Charm?"

Hermione watched them practice for a while before turning back to her work, smiling to herself.

--

A nervous pair of teens entered Lyta's apartment at the appointed time, and she didn't need to be a teep to recognize that something in their relationship had subtly changed since she'd last seen them. They looked around the room, clearly impressed.

"I love what you've done here," Ginny remarked.

"Definitely feels more lived-in," Harry added, and Lyta took that as a compliment.

"Thank you. I had a little help." She smiled, thinking of Zack's friendly gesture of pizza and assistance with re-decoration. He had no eye for color or pattern, but his company more than made up for that. "Just the two of you today?"

"Yeah. Ron and Hermione have other things to do," answered Harry. He quickly explained how they wanted her to help, with frequent interjections from Ginny. Lyta was fascinated by his descriptions of the techniques he'd learned to get into someone's mind or keep someone out.

"So you're supposed to empty your mind?" she asked curiously. She knew of many ways to keep telepaths from reading your thoughts, some that even non-telepaths could use, but this was totally new.

"That's what I was taught," Harry shrugged.

"That seems hard to maintain for very long," Lyta considered. "I don't even think it's possible when you're asleep."

"I have a problem with that," he admitted uncomfortably.

"Why? How do _you_ keep thoughts out?" inquired Ginny. "You must have a way."

"If we didn't, all telepaths would go crazy," Lyta laughed. "Can you imagine having other people's thoughts running through your head all day long? That's what we hear if we don't take steps to keep them at bay. It's really pretty simple. You build a wall inside your head."

"Like the one in Garibaldi?" Ginny suggested.

"More or less. It's usually the first technique a young telepath learns, and it's easy because everyone knows what a wall is. You just have to picture one circling your mind, keeping everything out."

"Could you teach me to do that?" asked Harry shyly.

"I don't see why not," Lyta shrugged. "Teaching you to build a mental wall might actually help with figuring out how to tear one down. Any other questions?" The pair shook their heads, and Lyta indicated that they should sit down and make themselves comfortable, which was much easier now that she had chairs. "Let's get started."

--

Author's Note: All right, so things are pretty well set up. I hope no one is disappointed, but I didn't want to spend a tremendous amount of time on the practicing. ISN appears in the next chapter.

Review responses:

Samael3: Well, thank you. I'm glad you like me just the way I am.

Stephen DOG Milne: Good, I'm glad you liked Londo in the last chapter. With all the ideas you have, I could easily see fanfiction from my fanfiction taking off. I'm sure you understand that I don't have time to address all of the things that _could _happen.

selenepotter: The kids are going to try to stay out of the way of the cameras, and I probably will not go as far along that subplot line as you would like, but there will be a little interaction. As far as your predictions for Day of the Dead, I don't recognize Agathon or Sapho. Who are they?

HarryPotter'sgirl17: Hi! I'm glad you've found this story. There are actually very few of us who are fans of both worlds, and it was kind of a crazy idea I had back when the DVD sets became available for B-5 to merge the two. From your perspective, it probably seems that I've updated quickly, but I usually post a new chapter about every two weeks.


	20. Chapter 20: Story at Eleven

A Weasley Baby

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: ISN puts in an appearance, and the preparations are finally completed. This is kind of a long chapter again. I wanted to include a lot.

**Story at Eleven**

About two days later, the preparations for curing Mr. Garibaldi were nearly done, and Ron was extremely grateful. Although he'd been sleeping reasonably well, his dreams were filled with all of the things that could go wrong, so that he awoke feeling hardly rested. In addition to that, Hermione had been working all four of them hard during every waking hour. If they weren't laboring on the potions and charms for their current project, there was schoolwork to get caught up on.

Ron leaned back, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly and hoping they could go home soon. He was looking forward to getting back to some kind of routine, not to mention the prospect of playing Quidditch again. His eyes were having trouble focusing on the page before him, so he decided to close them for a moment.

Suddenly, the door alarm beeped, and Ron jumped. Hermione allowed Captain Sheridan to enter, and everyone stood up as though at some unspoken signal. Sheridan hadn't personally visited them since the day they'd arrived here with him, so this must be something important.

"I didn't want to risk sending a message about this," Sheridan began. "A crew from ISN is here. They're doing a report on Babylon 5."

"ISN?" Ron frowned, thinking that he'd seen those letters somewhere, but he couldn't place them.

"What?" said Hermione at almost the same moment. "They're just the propaganda machine for Earth's corrupt government!" It was beginning to come back to Ron now. ISN was the logo on some of the moving pictures Hermione watched on the computer from time to time.

"I know," the captain nodded. "But I'm in a no-win situation. If I refuse them access, or even limit them in ways I can't give security reasons for, it will only look like we have something to hide. They have to go back with a story, whether we help them or not. The reporter in charge has assured me that he'll do his best to get a little bit of the truth into the newscast if I cooperate, even though we both know there will be limits to what he can do."

"So you're trying to steer the news your way?" Ginny asked.

"I don't think 'steer' is quite the word," replied Sheridan with a tight smile. "'Nudge' is probably the best we can hope for, and even that's thin. I just wanted to let you know this is happening because I'm hoping you'll be able to stay out of the way of the cameras. I've sent Linnear to give them a tour, so if you need to leave your quarters for anything, now might be a good time."

"How long are they going to be here?" Harry put in.

"A few days."

The four wizards exchanged glances, and Ron was pretty sure they were all wondering pretty much the same thing – how could they possibly stay hidden for several days?

"Er, sir," Hermione addressed him hesitantly. "We're almost ready to try our remedies on Garibaldi."

"Good," Sheridan said, appearing relieved. "I'll be glad to have that done as soon as possible." Ron took that as permission to leave their quarters to do that, even if they'd risk being seen.

"What's going to happen to him if we…fix him?" wondered Ginny. Sheridan paused, considering.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't think I can hire him back to his old position. It would draw too much attention. Still, Garibaldi's a smart and capable person, and I'm sure we can work something out. I hated to lose all of his experience and instinct. To be honest, though, I'm not thinking that far ahead. At this point, I'd be happy to just have a civil conversation with him again."

There were no other questions, so Sheridan quickly left to prepare for an interview he and Delenn were going to give to the reporter. The four teens looked at each other again.

"Does anyone else get the feeling that if Garibaldi gives an interview the way he is now, it could go rather badly?" Harry voiced what Ron suspected they were all thinking. His only answer was that everyone threw themselves into their work with redoubled zeal.

--

At last, the work was finished. It had been going on so long that Ginny couldn't remember what she'd done with her time before. She couldn't recall any school project that had occupied her to so great a degree for so long. They tried to contact Garibaldi but got no answer, although they knew he was back on the station. It was definitely inconvenient that he no longer wore a comlink. Ginny had a very bad feeling about this, and when she met Hermione's eyes, she could see that the older girl felt much the same way.

"Why don't you two go and find him?" Hermione suggested to Harry and Ginny. "When you do, contact us here so that Ron and I know where to bring the potions. Or just bring Mr. Garibaldi here."

"Do you feel the same sense of urgency about this I do?" Ginny asked Harry as they walked through the corridors.

"Definitely," Harry replied. The pair made their way to the area of the Zocalo where they knew Garibaldi usually conducted business. They found him, but they weren't the first ones. A man was just sitting down across from Garibaldi. She assumed that this must be the interviewer, since things that were apparently cameras were hovering around the man in such a way that they could see Garibaldi but not him. To Ginny, though, the "cameras" looked more like gigantic insect eggs with a Levitation Charm placed on them.

"What do we do?" Harry hissed into Ginny's ear. Ginny could see him eyeing the cameras warily, just as she was.

"We'll have to try to get Garibaldi's attention," Ginny whispered back. She wasn't sure how sensitive the cameras were to sound, but she had to assume that whatever they used to "hear" were focused on Garibaldi at the moment. Fortunately, Ginny and Harry were at the interviewer's back, so there was a chance they could catch Garibaldi's attention without the other man seeing them. It would be a narrow window of opportunity, however.

Taking a deep breath, Ginny stepped around to the side so that she was in Garibaldi's line of sight but behind the flying cameras. She waved hesitantly. His eyes flickered to her once, back to the interviewer, then back to Ginny with more interest. Unfortunately, subtlety did not appear to be one of the things either programmed into him or part of his natural makeup. Garibaldi held up a hand to the interviewer, asking him to pause for a moment, and looked back at Ginny with a question in his eyes. She nodded, but naturally enough, the newsman turned in his seat to look at her. She quickly ducked back to join Harry and tried to look as though she hadn't really been looking at the two men.

"I'm really sorry to cut this short," said Garibaldi, standing. "I just remembered I have a pressing appointment. Maybe you can catch up with me later. It was nice to meet you." With that, he shook the other man's hand and came to join Ginny and Harry. Ginny was uncomfortably aware that the single eye of one camera turned and followed them out of sight. She fervently hoped they hadn't inadvertently provided fodder for whatever smear story would end up getting told.

"Is everything ready?" Garibaldi asked once they were out of sight of the news crew.

"As ready as it's going to be," Harry responded. "But--"

"No guarantees. Yeah, I know." Despite his assurances that he knew the risks, Mr. Garibaldi was clearly very happy to have at least the prospect of being freed from his psychic bonds.

"Is it okay to use one of our rooms?" Ginny suggested then.

"I don't care. Whatever works for you guys." That seemed good enough permission, so they went straight back to the room Harry and Ginny had just left. Hermione greeted them cheerfully and set to work. She gave Garibaldi a potion designed to open clear pathways through his brain, followed by a second to relax his mind and body while still leaving him conscious. They wanted him more or less aware of what was going on around him but not to care too much. He claimed the second tasted terrible but downed it anyway.

As they waited for these to take effect, everyone took up their positions. Harry took Ginny's left hand in his right, and they raised their wands in their free hands. Hermione surreptitiously held a Sleeping Draught at the ready, along with a reserve potion in case the first two didn't work the way they hoped. Ron, as the largest, stood by to physically restrain Garibaldi if necessary. Inside Ron's head, Kosh was supposed to be keeping him apprised of Harry and Ginny's progress and preparing to warn him if anything untoward happened.

"What are the sticks for?" Garibaldi addressed Harry and Ginny, his voice beginning to sound vague and dreamy. He seemed to realize this, too. "Hey, this stuff is better than whiskey. I'm not gonna get a hangover from it, am I?"

"No hangovers," Hermione assured him. "Just a sour taste in your mouth for a few minutes." When he leaned back dazedly into his seat, Harry met Ginny's gaze, asking if she were ready. She nodded and gripped his hand more tightly.

"Legilimens!" Harry cried out, and Ginny found herself whisked away from her body. It was a strange feeling, somewhat reminiscent of riding the thestrals last year, in that she was flying without seeing how. She felt Harry's presence beside her, and he seemed to know where he was going, so she allowed herself to be swept along.

When they arrived at their destination, there was no mistaking it. It was a sturdy wall, looking like the strongest Hogwarts had to offer. This was her job, and she steeled herself. Since she had no physical body, Ginny imagined pointing her wand at the wall.

"Alohamora," she tried. The wall shimmered and seemed to thin somehow, but that was all. Well, she hadn't expected this to be that easy. Lyta had given them several types of barriers to practice on, and each one required a different combination of spells. They had all been heartened by the fact that they had been able to find their way through every one eventually.

"Caderus," said Ginny next, followed by "Concidere" and "Dilabilum." That last one worked the best, creating visible cracks in the edifice. Heartened, she tried her last one: "Perrumpere!" She probed the barrier with her mind, finding weak spots she thought she could push against. Finally, she drew on Harry's strength, casting a true tandem charm.

"Perrumpere!" they both shouted (mentally), Harry picking up the hint. Ginny saw a gaping hole open in the wall, and she and Harry worked their own consciousnesses into the breach until the entire structure came tumbling down around them.

"Get – out – of – my – head!" thundered a tremendous voice all around them, and they were flying again, only backwards this time. Ginny felt as though she were going to lose her identity; she was being torn to shreds by the force of personality that was a newly whole Garibaldi. Then Harry was there, a whisper in her ear, reminding her who she was, and she picked up the scattered pieces of herself, taking care to leave nothing behind.

When she came back to her body, Ginny was surprised to find that she was not exactly where she remembered. Instead of holding Harry's hand, her arm was completely around him, and he held her similarly, although their free hands still held upraised wands.

"The bastard!" Garibaldi exclaimed, practically vaulting out of the chair. "The damned _bastard!_" Ron and Hermione both reacted swiftly, using their bodies to prevent him from moving further. Whatever Ginny and Harry had done, it appeared to have had the side effect of clearing Garibaldi's mind of the effects of the potion. The two of them slowly disengaged from one another, much to Ginny's regret.

"Please try to relax," Hermione urged Garibaldi. Either her voice or the two of them pushing against him got through. Garibaldi relaxed back into his seat.

"Where is Bester? I'm going to kill him," he declared.

"He's probably back on Earth by now," Harry informed him reasonably.

"Out of your reach for the moment," Ron added. Ginny knelt in front of Garibaldi.

"What do you remember?" she requested gently. She had her own guesses, but she suspected it would help him order his thoughts if he recounted them aloud.

"Most of the time, I was in a bare room," Garibaldi began. "I must have been unconscious part of the time because I don't know how I got there. It looked like an interrogation room you'd see in one of those old vids, you know? With the two-way glass?"

"I know," Harry assured him, nodding.

"I was just pacing in there, going crazy," Garibaldi resumed. "A voice, through a speaker or something, kept saying 'where have you been?' and I didn't know. Dammit, they were conditioning me! They wanted to make sure that when people asked me that here, I not only wouldn't be able to answer, but I'd get mad and frustrated. But I saw Bester there once. He planted things in my mind…"

"Are any of those things still there?" asked Hermione worriedly.

"Yeah, but I don't feel like I have to do them anymore. It's like I know what they were, but any…compulsion is gone." He leaned forward, rubbing at his eyes. "Oh, God, they set me up! I'm naturally paranoid, you know. It's a good quality in a security chief, but…they made it stronger, made sure I wouldn't trust the captain."

"It's not your fault," Ron interjected quickly, and Ginny couldn't help but wonder if he was talking as much about what had happened to her four years ago as Garibaldi's situation.

"I don't think you should kill Bester, either," Harry put in.

"Why the hell not?" Garibaldi demanded. "You think I should just let him get away with messing around with my head?"

"Not necessarily, but he's still useful to the captain," said Hermione.

"Besides, it's probably better if no one really knows you're 'cured,'" contributed Ron, always the strategist. "I mean, other than a few people here."

"Maybe you can go back to work for Sheridan in some sort of unofficial capacity," Ginny suggested, and with the gleam that appeared in Garibaldi's eyes, she was pretty sure she'd struck something.

"Cloak and dagger stuff, huh?" he speculated. "I never figured myself for the type, but I'm not too at home in a uniform, either. That's an idea. I have to get back at Bester, though."

"By all means," agreed Hermione. "Just be patient and let the punishment fit the crime. We may be able to help you protect yourself against him and other telepaths in the future, too."

"You guys can do that? That would be great!" said Garibaldi appreciatively.

"If you'll take a suggestion, I think you should find that news chap right now and give him his interview," Harry put in. "I think you're ready now." Garibaldi looked surprised, then chagrined.

"Oh man, the stuff I was going to say…it was like he knew," he commented.

"You were probably going to be their _piece de resistance_," remarked Hermione. "The inside man turned against his commander."

"It doesn't mean he actually knew what had happened to you," Ginny felt some obscure reason to defend the newsman. "He might have been ordered to track you down without knowing why."

"The result's the same, though, isn't it?" said Ron.

"Not anymore," Garibaldi announced. "Now I know what to say to them. Thank you all, very much. I'll get back with you on the protecting your mind stuff." With that, he was gone, leaving the four wizards to smile bemusedly at one another.

--

Garibaldi whistled as he sauntered down the corridor. It couldn't be too hard to find a news crew, even on a station this size. He knew all his problems were nowhere near solved, but he felt free in a way he hadn't for quite some time. Sure enough, he found Randall easily, not too far from where he'd left him.

"Hey, sorry about that," Garibaldi greeted him jovially. "I'm ready to finish that interview now."

"Who were those young people?" asked Randall, his journalist's instinct clearly set off.

"Just some kids who were helping me with something." Garibaldi leaned in confidentially. "I can't give away any trade secrets, you know. I've got a business to run. You understand."

"Of course," Randall replied faintly, seeming nonplussed. Garibaldi was prepared to really enjoy this. The two of them, with the cameras trailing behind, went back to the table where Randall had initially found him. Garibaldi took the initiative.

"Let's see, where were we?" he mused. "Oh right, you wanted to know why I quit. Well, now that I've had time to think about it, I've decided it's none of your damn business." Garibaldi kept his tone and expression pleasant, despite the innate offensiveness of his words, and he saw the flash of irritation that crossed Randall's face before he suppressed it. He was no doubt angry with himself for letting Garibaldi out of his sight before the interview was completed.

"I thought you were saying something about Captain Sheridan," Randall prompted, every inch the unflappable interviewer again.

"Sheridan? He's a great leader and the best CO I've ever worked for. That's 'commanding officer' for the civilians in your audience," Garibaldi added helpfully.

"Then he's not the reason you resigned your commission?"

"Of course not. Let's just say I left for personal reasons. I was ready to start on a new path. Chief of security in a place like can be a pretty stressful job."

"What about the aliens?"

"What about 'em?"

"You're not worried they're placing undue influence upon…the command structure?"

Garibaldi grinned inwardly. He must really have this guy rattled if he was leading that obviously.

"I'm not sure what you mean," Garibaldi answered, his face a mask of innocence. "This place was set up to have any major decisions made jointly by humans, Minbari, Vorlons, Centauri, and Narns, in consultation with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. The Narns were out for a while – I guess they'll be back soon since they've got their independence back – and the Vorlons are gone, but I don't see any reason to completely change the charter. Does Earthgov have a problem with Babylon 5's original purpose?"

Of course, there was no good response to that. Clarke or his agents couldn't very well come right out and admit that they were against cooperation between the races. Randall tried a different tack.

"You can't deny that Babylon 5 has become a focus of military power," he said. Garibaldi shrugged unconcernedly.

"It was always an Earthforce installation, in addition to a diplomatic meeting place," he reminded the reporter, who doubtless already knew that. It would have been kind of hard to miss all the uniforms. "It seemed natural to use the station as a base in the Shadow War."

"But what about now?" Randall pressed.

"It's not my concern. If you remember, we started this conversation by establishing that I'd resigned." Garibaldi smiled beatifically, and he was fairly certain that, from Randall's point of view, the interview just went downhill from there.

--

Author's Note: I hadn't originally intended to write Garibaldi's revised interview, but in the middle of this chapter, I realized how fun it was to write dialogue for him, so I just couldn't resist. The additional charms Ginny used were just modifications of Latin words for things like "break" and "fall."

Review responses:

Samael3: I don't really know about the level of awareness the various magical races and creatures have in this story. Frankly, it's not that clear how aware they are of Muggles in Rowling's books. I guess you can decide for yourself.

Stephen DOG Milne: Some people do their best writing in their sleep! Thanks, though.

selenepotter: Oh, I get it now. Of course Garibaldi came back! He hasn't gone to Mars yet. I think that was supposed to happen in the next two episodes.

HarryPotter'sgirl17: Thank you; I've worked very hard to keep everyone in character.


	21. Chapter 21: Redemption

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Look, a lot of you are making suggestions for additional subplots, and that's great, but this is 21 chapters already, and I'm really hoping to wind it down by chapter 25. I'm sorry, but I'm getting tired of writing it and don't want it to go on forever.

**Redemption**

Harry looked around bemusedly after Garibaldi had gone. He was still a little disoriented from his jaunt through the man's brain, and at some level, he felt like his thoughts and Ginny's were still mingled.

"What just happened?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"You tell us, mate," Ron responded, coming over to him and looking into his face with concern. "You were in there."

"Well, obviously, it worked," declared Hermione.

"Kosh was worried about you both for a moment," Ron added. "It was like he lost you."

"I almost _was _lost," said Ginny quietly, and everyone turned toward her. "Harry saved me."

"What? How?" Harry vaguely remembered being forced through the corridors of Garibaldi's mind and struggling to keep Ginny with him. She'd been losing cohesion somehow, but he didn't know what he'd done to help.

Ginny closed in on him, gazing up with a disturbingly intense expression in her warm, brown eyes.

"I was falling apart," she admitted. "I couldn't hold myself together, but then I felt you beside me. You reminded me who I was. I had no idea you knew me so well." Harry's mouth went dry, and he worked his jaw a few times without managing to make any sound.

"I know you," he managed to croak out finally. Their eyes locked, saying more than words ever could, and Harry probably would have kissed her if her brother hadn't suddenly reminded them of his presence.

"So what now?" Ron said to the room at large. "Can we go home yet?"

"Since when are you anxious to go back to school?" asked Hermione archly.

"Since I'm exhausted from all these extracurricular activities," he shot back. Hermione grinned broadly at him, a wicked gleam in her eye.

"Really?" she drawled teasingly. "I'll have to remember that. I thought you enjoyed our 'extracurricular activities', even if they're tiring sometimes." There was no doubt about what she meant, and Ron's deep flush indicated that he'd got the message. Harry cleared his throat rather ostentatiously and helped Ginny to a seat. She seemed a bit unsteady on her feet. He dropped down beside her.

"Have we done everything we think we were supposed to here?" he inquired.

"Of course, there's no way to know for sure," Hermione considered thoughtfully.

"Not until Draal summons us or something," Harry agreed.

"Let's add up everything we've done," Ginny suggested, holding up a finger to start. The color was coming back to her cheeks. "We saved Sheridan at Z'Ha'Dum."

"We've got what's left of Kosh," Ron commented, tapping his forehead.

"We learned about the Psi Corps," contributed Hermione. "And that we're related to telepaths."

"We fought the Shadows," said Harry.

"We cured Garibaldi," Ginny concluded. "Is that enough?"

"It seems like there's a civil war brewing," Ron mused. "We could help out with that."

"That could take ages," Harry protested, and he was surprised to find Ginny shaking her head as well.

"I get the feeling this is something they need to work out for themselves," she added. "We are wizards, after all, and wizards don't get involved with Muggle politics."

_Oh really?_ Harry couldn't help thinking. Although it certainly wasn't talked about much, a few comments dropped by Arthur Weasley and others indicated that there was some attention being paid to what went on in the Muggle political world and at least a little occasional dabbling. Still, he didn't think it served anything to say so.

"And if they decide to, it should be the wizards of this time," Hermione was saying. She shot a glance at Harry that seemed to indicate she'd been thinking along the same lines as he had. "We're not quite done, though. We've still got to help Garibaldi shield his mind."

"Can we even do that?" asked Harry. "Lyta said only telepaths could do the things she was teaching us. It wasn't until she met us that she learned wizards could do it, too." Both he and Ginny had made incredible progress during the short sessions they'd had with Lyta, and Harry felt much more confident about going back home and being protected from Voldemort's influence. On the other hand, he was realizing the value of having that link sometimes, when the Dark Lord didn't expect it, to gain important information. His ultimate hope was to control the communication and keep it strictly one-way. Unfortunately, Voldemort only seemed to let things slip when he was very angry, and Harry couldn't exactly predict those times.

"I think we need to try," said Ron firmly.

"I agree," nodded Ginny. "Harry can teach him Occlumency."

"But – but it hardly works for me!" Harry protested. "And we don't know if a Muggle can do that, either."

"We can find out," shrugged Hermione. "It's not exactly magical, is it? He probably knows other techniques people use to keep telepaths out of their deeper thoughts, like reciting math problems or nursery rhymes on the surface. Occlumency would just be in addition to those things."

"None of which work when you're asleep," Harry reminded everyone faintly, but he sensed that he was losing this battle. He sighed with resignation. "Oh, I'll give it a go. We can't leave him without making the effort, can we?"

"No, we can't," said Ron firmly, and when Harry looked toward him, he could see the commiseration from someone who knew even better than he how futile it was to argue with Hermione when she took an idea into her head. "He's probably not as prime a target as he was, but he could still be used."

"Especially if the captain starts to trust him again," Hermione put in with a furrowed brow. "And we don't know whether being under a telepath's influence once makes it easier or harder to do it again."

"Or keeps it the same," suggested Ginny. "Anyway, I think we've settled that we'll help Mr. Garibaldi as far as we can, but what are we supposed to do in the meantime? We can't really leave our rooms until the media are gone." At this point, Ron looked meaningfully at his girlfriend.

"I seem to recall someone recently saying something about extracurricular activities," he remarked casually. Before Harry could come up with other options, Ron had taken Hermione by the hand and was pulling her into a bedroom. She was objecting, but it sounded a bit feeble to Harry, and she certainly wasn't fighting very hard.

Harry shook his head as the pair disappeared and turned back to Ginny. The silence stretched out uncomfortably. Harry found himself thinking about what might be going on in the next room and was immensely grateful that sound didn't carry well between walls. The moment was awkward enough. Finally, Ginny approached him.

"Really, Harry, I want to thank you for saving me," she said quietly. "I hate to think what would have happened to me if you hadn't been there." With frightening clarity, Harry suddenly saw the younger Ginny again, cold and motionless, on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. He recalled how he had desperately willed her to be alive. He remembered, too, how unreasonably angry he had become when Riddle had mocked her crush on Harry and called her a silly, little girl. At the time, he had thought of her only as Ron's younger sister and assumed that he was acting on his best friend's behalf. Was it possible, though, that at some level, he had known how deeply he would one day care for her?

"Don't--" he began, but he didn't get a chance to finish. Ginny pressed her hands on his shoulders and used the leverage to rise up and kiss him soundly on the mouth. It was sweet, dizzying, and all too brief. Harry felt an odd clicking in his head, like the placing of the final piece on a jigsaw puzzle he'd been putting together for years. When she pulled away, however, it occurred to him that while this might represent the end of one phase of his life, it also felt like the beginning of a new one.

"Well, I suppose I'll go back to my room and relax a little," Ginny breathed, turning to leave. It was about two seconds' delay before Harry realized what she'd said. Now that he had a taste of what he'd been missing chasing after Cho, he wasn't ready to let it go that easily.

"Wait," he said, grasping her by the elbow, groping for something to say. "You can't just kiss someone and leave like that!"

"Why not?"

Harry could do nothing but gape for a long moment. It was so obvious to him, but pressed like that, he couldn't come up with a decent answer.

"It simply isn't _done!_" he exclaimed finally, knowing how lame it sounded. Besides, he really hadn't the faintest idea of whether it was done or not, his own experience in the area being very limited. In retrospect, turning and leaving was probably a better outcome than crying on his shoulder for half an hour. It still felt indescribably wrong, though.

"Well, Harry Potter, I should think you'd know by now that I'm not much concerned with what's generally done." Ginny raised her eyebrows at him. "Neither are you, if I remember correctly." Harry felt himself flushing a little at that. It was certainly true that he'd circumvented rules any number of times for various reasons, and more than one person had commented that his approach to dueling was novel. He decided to come at the issue from a different direction.

"Are you seriously going to leave me here alone with…that?" he asked plaintively, gesturing vaguely in the direction Ron and Hermione had gone. Ginny tapped her cheek thoughtfully.

"You do have a point," she conceded. "Very well; what would you suggest?"

"You could invite me across the corridor with you."

"Ah, welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly?" teased Ginny archly. "All right. Come along, then." She led the way, and if this was a trap, Harry couldn't recall one he'd entered more willingly. He considered telling her that she was far prettier than any spider he'd ever seen, including the Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest, but at the last second, he decided that she wouldn't appreciate the comparison.

--

Once the news crew had finally left, and life on the station could return to whatever passed for normal on it, John Sheridan was not particularly surprised when Michael Garibaldi asked to see him. His special guests had already informed the captain that they believed Garibaldi to be cured, and Sheridan was anxious to see the results. In addition, the four teens were holding follow-up sessions with Garibaldi to make certain there were no other unpleasant surprises hiding within him and to teach him to protect his mind in the future.

The crew areas of the station were no longer appropriate for this kind of meeting, so they'd decided on the Zocalo. It was hard to have a truly private conversation, but most people around were so wrapped up in their own business that they paid little attention to anyone around them. It was a reasonable compromise.

"Welcome to my office," said Garibaldi wryly, rising and gesturing for Sheridan to take a seat at the table across from him.

"Thank you," Sheridan replied, smiling genially. He had an idea of what Garibaldi was going to tell him, but he simply steepled his fingers and waited for the other man to take the lead. Sheridan did not require an apology, knowing what he knew, but he had the sense (confirmed especially by Ginny) that there were some things his former security chief just needed to say.

"Look, Captain, I'm sorry," Garibaldi began, and Sheridan merely nodded understandingly, giving Garibaldi the encouragement to continue. "I know I distrusted you when you first got here, but that was my job. With all we've been through since then…I should've known better. I should've trusted your judgment."

"You couldn't help it," Sheridan broke in. "You'd been tampered with."

"I know, and I'm mad as hell about that! But the way I figure it, Bester couldn't have done that if there wasn't something there to work with. I must have had some lingering doubt, just under the surface. So I'm sorry for that."

"Apology accepted." It seemed time for that particular phrase, and Sheridan did mean it. He was more than ready to let bygones be bygones.

"Thank you," sighed Garibaldi with genuine relief. "I just wish I could be sure it wouldn't happen again."

"Your getting separated from the other fighters was one chance in a million," Sheridan assured him, leaning forward. He'd actually been giving this a great deal of thought. "The Psi Corps took advantage of it, but I don't see anything like that happening again, especially now that you're a private citizen."

"Yeah, I guess I won't be piloting a Star Fury anytime soon," Garibaldi agreed, regret tingeing his features. "So what happens now?"

"I'm sure you've thought about it already," Sheridan relaxed back into his seat. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I can't ask for my old job back," said Garibaldi firmly. "Aside from the fact that it would look strange to everyone and give away that I'm not playing the game anymore, it wouldn't be fair to Zack. He's earned this."

"He wouldn't begrudge you the position," Sheridan remarked, certain of the truth of the statement. Garibaldi smiled indulgently.

"No, I don't think he would, but it still wouldn't be fair. In a way, though, I have more freedom now. As an independent businessman, I can go a lot of places where the presence of Earthforce could be…awkward, to say the least, and a representative of Babylon 5 even worse. If there's anything I can do for you, just ask."

"Actually, I think there is," Sheridan admitted. This had been just the sort of offer he'd been looking for. "As you said, I can't send anyone officially to Earthgov outposts or other places that have declared independence, like Mars. For right now, I'd appreciate it if you could be my eyes and ears. You don't have to go anywhere special – not yet, anyway. Just go about your business and tell me anything interesting you find out. I'll trust your instincts to know what that would be."

"Thank you, Captain," Garibaldi responded fervently, and the gratitude in his eyes was actually a little funny, considering that it was Sheridan asking _him_ for a favor.

"Thank _you, _Michael," said Sheridan as he stood up. "You don't officially report to me now, so you don't have to address me as 'Captain.'" He leaned on the table confidentially and lowered his voice to a near-whisper. "By the way, if you can find out exactly what the Psi Corps was planning for you, it would be extremely helpful."

"I'd like to know that, too," Garibaldi confided, giving a feral grin. "John." With that, Sheridan left, confident that things were turning his way for a change. It was probably going to be short lived – his life seemed to go that way – but he fully intended to enjoy it while it lasted.

--

Author's Note: I just had to add Sheridan's sort of fatalistic attitude, especially after he said, during their trip with Bester, that something seemed to come up every time he thought he might have a day off. So basically, I've had Sheridan select Garibaldi as head of intelligence a little early.

Review responses:

Samael3: Yeah, I did read that magical creatures book, but it was a while ago. I thought about making it more difficult, but I had already done a lot of lead-up and felt that it would come across as too contrived. And as I said above, I'm getting ready to be done with this installment.

The Professional: I see your point, but two things might explain that: A) Garibaldi sees Sinclair as more of a friend than CO, so he doesn't include him in the same category or B) he was exaggerating for the purposes of the interview. You decide.:)

Stephen DOG Milne: Oh, you may get a hint of the reaction back home to Garibaldi's revised interview. Most of it, of course, will never air.

DragonMage101: The techno-mages didn't really play a large role in the main series – they were more of a key element in Crusade. While I agree that would be interesting, I don't intend to go that route with this particular story.

selenepotter: Interesting idea but somehow, I'm not sure Garibaldi is really Ranger material. The discipline thing has never been easy for him.

rahyne: Generally speaking, you'll have to wait and find out. I have a vague idea for a third part, but I'm going to need to take a break before I write it.

HarryPotter'sgirl17: I'm thinking it means he won't give into alcoholism again, but I'm not really planning to deal with it.


	22. Chapter 22: Farewell

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

**Farewell**

Before too much time had passed, of course, Harry felt the need to have an awkward talk with Ron. At least, that was how Ron interpreted the situation. He found it rather guiltily amusing to watch his best friend stumble and stammer around to say what amounted to asking Ron's permission to date his sister.

Almost as amusing as it was to imagine said sister's reaction if she knew they were having this conversation. Ron did not think Ginny would take it well that Harry felt he needed Ron to give her away like a possession, and he was quite sure she would see it that way. However, both he and Harry knew that this was something more than that. This was most definitely a "guy thing," and it would take an army of Acromantula to get Ron to tell Ginny that this discussion had ever taken place.

"It's not really my decision to make," Ron said aloud when Harry finally wound down.

"Well, yes…I suppose, but…I just felt I should…I don't want to go behind your back."

"We're best mates, Harry," replied Ron firmly. "I'm not going to let anything get in the way of that again." He remembered how unreasonable he had been the year of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and it was a folly he didn't want to repeat. Contrary to what some others might believe, he _could _be taught.

"Are you sure you're not upset?"

"I might have been a year ago. Maybe even a few months ago. But a lot has happened since then." Ron leaned back, considering. "You know, Dad told me once that you chase a girl until she catches you. It didn't make much sense at the time."

"It still doesn't make sense to me," Harry asserted, and Ron grinned.

"I get it now, but I like to think of it in another way. You see, girls are like cats."

"Cats?" If possible, Harry looked even more mystified.

"Yeah. You don't choose them. They choose you, but they sometimes let you _think _you chose them. Get it?"

"Not really, but I'll take your word for it."

"The point is, Ginny set her heart on you a long time ago," Ron concluded. "As the seventh child and only girl, she's used to getting what she wants, and she knows how to do it. It took her longer than I've ever seen in this case, though. You have to admire her persistence, really."

"Are you saying I'm slow?" Harry accused, frowning.

"I'd never say that," Ron did his best to appear shocked, but he wasn't sure he quite succeeded. Anyway, he knew he hadn't a leg to stand on in this particular argument. It had taken him over three years to recognize that he might, just possibly, consider Hermione in more than a friendly light and another year to do anything about it, with the help of a few aliens. Although, in his defense, his feelings had probably only begun to form a year or so before the Yule Ball.

"Of course you wouldn't," Harry was saying dryly.

"I'm just saying you're resistant to certain forms of persuasion," Ron replied innocently. "That's not always a bad thing, is it?"

"Right." Harry said the next part slowly, as though making absolutely certain they understood one another. "So you're saying you're okay with this."

"What I'm _saying_ is that I don't want to be on the receiving end of a Bat-Bogey Hex," returned Ron emphatically. "So basically, yeah, I'm okay with it."

"Great. Thanks." Harry stood up and turned to leave, looking a bit like someone whose world had just been utterly rearranged. Ron knew the feeling, and it was actually kind of fun to have someone to share it with.

"Just one thing," Ron stopped him. "Don't ever tell Ginny we ever had this conversation."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Harry was clearly on the same page with regards to that. He left, and Ron found himself wishing he had his wizards' chess set. And someone to play against. He remembered that Delenn had in her quarters something that looked like a modified chess board and pieces. He wondered if Linnear might be willing to teach him….

--

Hermione jumped and gave a little, involuntary shriek of surprise when a translucent figure manifested directly in front of her. It probably shouldn't have startled her so much – she was used to having ghosts around at school, after all – but she'd been deeply engrossed in some Arithmancy calculations and had been paying only peripheral attention to her surroundings.

"Ah good, you're all here," boomed Draal's jovial voice. "It's been difficult to find just you four together since your work with Mr. Garibaldi."

This was certainly true. Now that Harry and Ginny had taken a new step in their relationship (something Hermione was very happy to observe), it was more common for the two couples to be apart. And when they _were_ all together, they were usually having one of their sessions with Ginny or talking with Captain Sheridan or something.

In fact, this current study session had been called by Hermione, who'd sensed that it probably wouldn't be long before they returned home. She knew that Ron couldn't focus on schoolwork when it was just the two of them, and if she were truly honest, it wasn't that easy for her, either.

"Does this mean we can go home?" exclaimed Ginny, practically jumping out of her chair.

"Soon, yes," Draal assured her, beaming. "The timeline tells me that you will leave tomorrow. I thought I would let you know, so you have a chance to say goodbye, wrap up any loose ends."

"Thank you," said Harry. "We appreciate that."

"Are we going to be flying to you again?" asked Ron.

"Not this time. Just as before, your temporal devices will blink, and when you all touch them, you'll return to the Machine. From there, I can send you home. Just try to be somewhere out of sight when you do it. We don't want to startle anyone by having you disappear in front of their eyes."

"Why all the mystery?" Hermione felt compelled to ask.

"I prefer to keep the full extent of my powers a secret," Draal replied. "And my level of involvement with the affairs of the station. I offered my services in the Shadow War, but now that that's over…well, I think it might be best in the long run if people gradually forget I'm even here."

"We'd already decided not to get involved in the civil war, either," Ginny mentioned.

"That story about the station is supposed to be shown in a few days, though, isn't it?" Ron put in. "It's too bad we won't be able to see how it turned out." Hermione gave him a long look, then turned back to Draal.

"Somehow, I have a feeling we're not supposed to be around for that," she remarked, and Draal inclined his head slightly.

"I'll leave you to your preparations, then." Draal bowed and vanished.

The next several hours were a flurry of farewell visits. First came Delenn and Linnear. Although the kids had not spent much time with the Minbari this trip, they couldn't forget their hospitality when they'd first met or that it had been Delenn's summons that alerted them to the fact that they were needed again. Delenn specifically thanked them for bringing Sheridan back to her.

Then came Lyta, who still seemed a bit adrift. Hermione thought she could understand how she felt. When she'd first come to Hogwarts, Hermione hadn't known how to interact with other students. She'd been an only child and had never had any peers that she could really call friends. In addition, she was Muggle-born, which set her slightly apart from the word go. Her response to the unfamiliar situation was the only thing she knew how to do – she strove to excel at everything. It wasn't until later that she realized how arrogant and self-important her behavior had made her appear. Truthfully, she'd just been trying to hide her insecurities.

"You know, I think I'm really going to miss you," Lyta told them, and Hermione didn't need to read minds to tell she was sincere. "With you guys around, I didn't feel so…unique."

"Lonely, you mean," Hermione supplied, smiling to soften the word. "Believe me, I know exactly what that's like."

"But there are hundreds like you where you come from," Lyta protested. "As far as I know, I'm the only one of my kind."

"It's not just our abilities that can set us apart," Hermione began.

"It's our choices," Harry interjected softly, and something in the way he said that indicated a deeper import than the words themselves implied. With a start, Hermione remembered his gift for Parseltongue and the way some of the students had been suspicious of him for that reason.

"Trust me, we've all been where you are at one time or another," Ginny assured her.

"Really?"

"Sure," Ginny shrugged. "I was the only girl in a family full of boys."

"And I was one boy too many in a large family," Ron added. "Once Ginny here was born, I felt like nobody paid much attention to me."

"I joined the wizarding world at 11 after being raised by…_normal_ parents," Hermione put in. "I wasn't the only one, but there weren't many of us."

"And I was The Boy Who Lived when I came to school," Harry finished the circuit. Lyta smiled gratefully.

"Maybe you're right," she said. "I need to stop focusing on my differences from the people around me. Maybe that will help them to ignore them, too."

"And there have to be other telepaths out there," Ginny added.

"Yes, but they're either alien or in the Psi Corps." Lyta shook her head. "I don't have much in common with them."

"There have to be others like you," Hermione suggested. "Ones that have left the Corps."

"Other rogues?" Lyta mused. "There always are. They're all on the run, though."

"Well, maybe some of them will find their way here like you did," suggested Harry encouragingly. "Good luck, anyway."

"Thank you," Lyta responded warmly.

By the time they'd got through those and Sheridan, it was fairly late, and they decided to do their briefer visits with other crew members in the morning. However, Hermione wanted to go and see G'Kar. Since she was the only one who'd really bonded with him, she sent the others back to their quarters with assurances that she wouldn't stay long.

On the way there, Hermione began to fret that she hadn't called ahead. There was still a lot she didn't understand about alien courtesy. Still, once she arrived outside his door in the Green Sector, she thought she might as well make the attempt. If he didn't answer the first ring, she'd leave.

G'Kar was awake, but he was not alone. Hermione entered his living area when the door opened, finding it dark again, lit by red lamps at strategic intervals. G'Kar entered from the bedroom, followed by a buxom blonde who was undeniably human. Hermione nearly swallowed her tongue.

"Ah, Hermione!" the Narn exclaimed, not seeming the least embarrassed. He wore a robe loosely belted to reveal a bare, mottled chest. The sensuality he exuded seemed at odds with the bandage that still covered his empty eye socket. "Wonderful to see you again."

"Am I – er – interrupting something?" Hermione eyed the pair of them.

"I can make time for you. Is it urgent?"

"I'm afraid it is, rather," admitted Hermione uncomfortably. "I could possibly come back in the morning—"

"No, no, that will never do," G'Kar interrupted her. With a significant look at his companion, he added, "I expect to be sleeping late tomorrow."

"Erm," was all Hermione could manage to squeak out.

"You don't mind, do you, dear?" G'Kar said to the blonde. "This will only take a minute or two." The woman nodded and withdrew demurely.

"I – I really appreciate this," Hermione stammered, struggling to regain her composure.

"Think nothing of it," G'Kar replied, waving a hand. Then, he leaned in confidentially. "You know, human females are so fascinating. Well, I don't suppose I need to tell you that – you are one. They actually seem to find this absent eye attractive. I never would have expected that, but apparently, it adds a touch of mystery. Of course, it also leads to a good story, which is always an excellent way to begin a conversation with someone new. But what did you want to see me about?"

"Well, we're going to be leaving tomorrow," Hermione explained, back on firm ground. "I just wanted to say goodbye."

"Just you?"

"The others didn't really talk to you the way I did," she shrugged. "Besides, they were really tired. I just wanted to thank you for the advice you gave me before, when Ron was in Medlab. It really helped me to get my thoughts in order, and I'm not sure we'd have the relationship we do if it hadn't been for you."

"Well, I was happy to help," G'Kar smiled kindly. "What good is wisdom if you can't share it? In return, I wish to thank all of you for inspiring me. I think it was your struggle against impossible odds that kept me going through my ordeal with the Centauri. The strength of your loyalty might even have encouraged me to go looking for Mr. Garibaldi in the first place."

"I find it hard to believe we did all that," Hermione murmured.

"Regardless, it was a great pleasure to meet you." He bowed to her, and Hermione knew that the interview was at an end. "I hope it won't be the last time."

"Me too," she agreed, inclining her head. She let herself out, and G'Kar presumably returned to his bed. Hermione was rather bemused as she made her way back to her quarters. She wasn't sure whether she was more surprised to find G'Kar with female companionship or to discover that he was interested in humans after all. She was certainly not going to tell Ron about this, and she was quite glad he hadn't come along this time.

--

Author's Note: Yes, we're winding down now. It's been a somewhat longer ride than I expected, but I am going to tie in with the end of the previous story, so I hope you all remember that.

Review responses:

Samael3: Er…the Vorlons and Shadows are gone, or are you talking about when Harry and Co. get back to their own time? If you look back at the early chapters, you'll find that the Vorlons' compromise was to have the wizarding world cut off from the general human population. In other words, they decided not to exterminate them. Still, a lot could happen in Part 3.

Stephen DOG Milne: I'll have to double check, but I don't think Garibaldi got Bester's influence completely cleared out until fairly late in the fifth season, as part of a deal with Lyta. I thought his lapse(s) into alcoholism was before that.

selenepotter: Granted, but Garibaldi says himself in the fifth season that he was never much for wearing a uniform. Besides, it would take years for him to master the fighting and meditation techniques required of a Ranger, not to mention the Minbari language. And between Delenn, Sheridan, and Marcus, there's not really a need for another liaison.

HarryPotter'sgirl17: I'd still like Garibaldi to get back with Lise, but that's beyond the scope of this story. And the kids will be getting home soon.

Isis the Sphinx: I'm trying to update regularly. It is almost done, and I hope the end won't be disappointing, but I would have felt like I was wandering if I kept it going much longer.


	23. Chapter 23: The Return

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Home again! And I'm even a little early with my update!

**The Return**

"By the time we get back home, I'm going to be knackered," Ron remarked after the little group finished their rounds of the crew the next morning. "I hope it's nighttime there." There were general murmurs of agreement. When they returned to the girls' quarters to gather their things and ready themselves for their journey, they found Garibaldi waiting for them. He was leaning indolently against the wall, more relaxed than Ginny had yet seen him. Upon spotting them, he grinned.

"You didn't think you were going to sneak out without saying goodbye, did you?" he accused good-naturedly.

"Of course not," Ginny assured him, smiling back. She really wanted to hug him, but he wasn't the sort of person to invite intimacy, so she gave into her native English reticence and refrained.

"You're not as easy to find as you used to be," Hermione reminded him. "Won't you come in?"

"Thanks," Garibaldi accepted the invitation as Hermione opened the door. Since they'd already planned that the girls' sitting room would be the point of their departure, everything they needed was neatly arranged there. Garibaldi looked at it all with his practiced eye. "Yeah, looks like you're leaving, all right."

"Well, we've been away from home for a while," Harry pointed out. Ginny glanced at him. By now, she knew that to him, home meant Hogwarts. For her, it was still the Burrow, but Hogwarts was a close second.

"I know what that's like," Garibaldi nodded. "I'll make this short. I just really wanted to thank you guys for helping me out. I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't come along."

"Don't mention it," Ron urged, but he was grinning.

"Are you going to be okay?" asked Hermione with concern. "Do you think you can protect yourself from other telepaths?"

"I'm as ready as I'm going to be," Garibaldi shrugged. "I think I'm going to miss having you around, though."

"I'll miss you, too," responded Ginny, extending her hand to him, which he shook. "Take care of yourself. And stay off the sauce." That last bit had been a risk, born of her earlier assessment of him. She could tell by the way his eyes widened that she'd hit her mark, although her friends looked slightly confused.

"I'll do my best," he promised.

"Good luck," Harry added, and he and the others took turns shaking hands as well.

"I promised myself I'd make this short, and I've never been much for good-byes anyway, so…I guess this is it," Garibaldi backed toward the door. "You don't need an escort or anything, do you?"

"No, we've got special transportation arranged," said Ron cryptically.

"Right. I don't suppose I could…see you off?" Garibaldi suggested hopefully.

"Now, Mr. Garibaldi," Hermione scolded gently. "You know a good magician never reveals his – or her – secrets."

"Well, I certainly know all about secrets," he conceded, smiling even though Ginny could sense he wasn't happy about not being able to indulge his curiosity. "All right then. Bye." He let himself out.

"Do you think we'll ever meet any of these people again?" Harry asked.

"I hope so," Ginny replied honestly. "I am looking forward to going back, though. I've really missed Quidditch."

"Me too," chorused Ron and Harry, while Hermione just shook her head in utter bafflement. She never had understood the fascination the others had with the wizard sport and probably never would. After all, she hated flying, and that was pretty insurmountable.

Everyone collected their things so that they were touching everything that was to go with them, and then they took out their special devices.

"So what do we do now?" Ron said in a theatrical whisper.

"Apparently, we wait," Hermione told him. "It shouldn't be long."

Indeed, it wasn't. Ginny barely had time to register that the lights on her device were flashing before the room dissolved, resolving itself into the heart of Draal's machine.

"Welcome back," Draal's avatar greeted them. The actual Draal was still firmly ensconced in the machine. "How was your trip?" Everyone answered more or less at once.

"Not bad," said Hermione.

"Good," said Ginny.

"Busy," said Ron.

"Long," said Harry.

"Well, I expect you're all ready to go home?" Draal asked. All four kids answered in the affirmative.

"I don't understand, though," Ron remarked. "Why didn't you send us straight there?"

"I'm afraid the temporal devices you carry are limited. Although I can use them to bring you to any point in time, they can only take you to one place – here. Useful enough, but the machine itself must be the method to take you home."

"Will it be Dumbledore's office again?" Harry asked then.

"That did seem the most secure place," Draal informed him. "There isn't a problem with that location, is there?"

"No, it's perfect." He glanced toward Ginny, who felt her heart speed up just the slightest amount. "I have something to tell Professor Dumbledore when we get there."

"Very good. If there are no further questions…" Draal hesitated, looking around. When no one ventured to say anything, he continued. "Farewell. And thank you."

Once again, the world shifted around Ginny, and she quickly found herself in the familiar and somehow comforting office of the Hogwarts headmaster. It was impossible to tell the time, but she was hoping, like her brother, that it was late evening so that they could all get some sleep before having to face anything. Dumbledore himself was sitting behind his desk, smiling at them over his half-moon spectacles.

"Wonderful to see you all back," he said. "As my 'guest' left some time ago, I assume you were successful?" Ginny blinked, having completely forgotten that Sheridan had been sort of in between worlds, this office being his temporary home while he decided whether to live or die. So much had happened since then.

"We saved Captain Sheridan," Hermione affirmed. "And apparently did everything else we were supposed to."

"Excellent," Dumbledore beamed. "And what became of my friend Lorien? He stopped in briefly when he pulled Captain Sheridan back to his time, but I haven't heard from him since."

"That's a bit complicated," Harry admitted as the four exchanged glances.

"He sort of turned into a ball of energy and went away," explained Ron. Dumbledore suddenly gave him a piercing look.

"Ah, that reminds me, Mr. Weasley," he said. "I believe you have something for me?"

"I do?" Ron looked puzzled, but then his gaze took on an inward focus, and his expression brightened with understanding. "Oh, you mean Kosh?" Ginny saw her own astonishment reflected on the faces of Harry and Hermione, but Dumbledore merely nodded.

"Kosh is meant to be with you?" Ginny blurted out.

"Yes," replied Dumbledore. "I believe there are some things we need to do together. You don't mind, do you, Mr. Weasley?"

"Not at all," said Ron. "Be glad to have my own mind back. He's a nice enough bloke, but a bit annoying at times." As soon as the last word was out of his mouth, Ron's eyes and mouth lit up, and wisps of light made their way to Dumbledore's face.

_I heard that, _said a soft, slightly ironic voice that seemed to thrum directly inside Ginny's mind. As soon as the transfer was complete, Ron grinned.

"I know," he answered unabashedly.

"How much time did we miss here?" Hermione wanted to know. Fortunately, Dumbledore did not seem to require much time to get used to the presence of another being in him.

"Two and a half weeks," he replied. "You should not be too far behind."

"Hermione did her best to keep us up, too," Harry put in.

"You'll be happy to know that this is Friday evening," Dumbledore added. "Therefore, you shall have the weekend to rest and get any final work completed before needing to attend classes."

"That is a relief, sir," Ginny said appreciatively. The others, as Sixth Years, had been able to drop some classes this year, but her O.W.L. work threatened to bury her. However, she knew she was lucky to have some friends who'd already been through it and could help her study.

"Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm ready to start on that rest now," Ron announced.

"Me too," Hermione agreed. "Besides, I want to put some finishing touches on that Charms essay…" She was still going through her to-do list as the pair went out the door, and Ginny smiled indulgently. If she knew her brother, there was going to be a stop at the kitchens before either work or sleep could happen. She was about to follow them out when she felt Harry take her hand. Surprised, she turned back and looked up at him.

"Please stay," he requested. "I have something to tell Professor Dumbledore, and I'd like you to hear it." Ginny nodded dumbly, facing the headmaster once again. She noted that Harry did not release her.

"Yes, Harry?" asked Dumbledore politely. Harry took in a breath, let it out again, and began.

"Professor, you gave me an assignment after our last trip…elsewhere," he said. "It took me longer than it should have, but I have an answer now." He squeezed Ginny's hand, and she looked at him again to find him gazing earnestly at her. She held her breath, thinking that something of great importance was about to be said.

"You told me to find something worth fighting for," Harry continued, probably for Ginny's benefit. "Something I wanted to live for. I've found it. I want to live for you, Ginny." Although he was ostensibly still answering Dumbledore's question, the last words were undeniably directed at her, and she didn't know what to say.

"Harry," was what came out of her mouth. She had forgotten where they were and most of what had happened to them in recent weeks. Her vision had narrowed to just Harry, at this moment, his intense green eyes boring into her brown ones. However, he wasn't done just yet.

"I thought about a lot of things when I tried to come up with an answer," he explained. "This school, and my friends, and your family, Ginny. But as much as I care about all of those things, it just wasn't enough. It all felt like a duty to perform. You're different. I want to smell your hair and watch the way your face flushes and your eyes light up when you're flying. I want to make you laugh and be there for you when you cry. I want you to be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning and the last thing before I go to sleep at night. In my mind, you already are.

"Everyone else, I would die for. But for you, Ginny…I want to live. I don't want to miss anything. Do you understand?"

"I – I think I understand enough," she stammered. Her heart was melting inside of her, and her stomach was burning. She'd never dreamed that anyone would say such things to her, let alone Harry Potter. Her flustered condition caused her to blurt out the next words. "I love you, Harry Potter." And because she desperately needed a release from her raging emotions, she kissed him. He kissed her back as though he'd been expecting it – had, perhaps, been just a moment away from doing it himself. His hands clasped behind her back, pulling her up and towards him.

A polite clearing of the throat interrupted them, and both sprang back, blushing madly. Of course, Ginny was quite sure that her flush was more evident, thanks to that Weasley complexion, but she could still tell that Harry's cheeks were pink.

"I – er," Harry tried.

"Sorry, sir," Ginny apologized at the same time. "I forgot where I was."

"Understandable," Dumbledore responded, his blue eyes twinkling merrily. "However, I suggest you might wish to find someplace more…private in which to express yourselves."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," Harry answered him, still clearly embarrassed but recovering. He began to leave, and Ginny followed. However, Harry paused on with his hand on the door. "Professor, I forgot…did you have another assignment for me?"

"Not at present. As I said before, you've all earned a break. However, I would like you to present yourself here on Tuesday evening at seven. We will begin a new phase of lessons."

Harry nodded and continued on his way out, Ginny right behind him. When the door was safely closed behind them, and they were riding the moving staircase down, he leaned toward her and whispered into her ear.

"By the way, I love you, too," he murmured. Ginny's heart leapt, and as they made their way to the Gryffindor Common Room, she didn't think she'd ever been happier.

--

Author's Note: Okay, so I got it done in Chapter 23. It seems a shame to be ending this just when the popularity was picking up. However, as promised, there will be an epilogue, and since I intend for it to be short, I should have it up within a week.

Review responses:

Samael3: No, things won't be the same, but that's another story and shall be told at another time (that's a Neverending Story reference, in case you haven't read it).

selenepotter: Well, they've still got a war to win in their own world. If they didn't go back, the future might change. That certainly provides food for thought, but not where I'm going here.

HarryPotter'sgirl17: You know, I was always a little disappointed that we didn't get to see David. However, the third part of this, if I ever write it, will be based on Earth and the battle against the Dark Lord.

Isis the Sphinx: Sorry about the spelling. I'm pretty sure I got it right earlier, but when I'm just mentioning names in passing, it's easy to mistype. Part III would be on Earth in the HP world.


	24. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Rights to Babylon 5 are owned by Warner Brothers Television, Babylonian Productions, Inc., the TNT network, and creator/writer/executive producer J. Michael Straczynski. I am making no money from the use of these characters and plotlines. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic.

Author's Note: Some of you will get your wish, at least partly. Thank you all for coming along for the ride.

**Epilogue**

Bester experienced a jolt of recognition when he saw the two teens in the raw ISN footage from Babylon 5. Although he didn't think he'd ever seen the pair before, and his telepathy couldn't work through a camera, there was something familiar about them. At his direction, the technician paused on the frame, allowing Bester to study the image at his leisure.

The boy was of middle height and skinny, his black hair sticking up in odd places, and he wore round glasses. The girl was shorter, with a long mane of red hair and scattered freckles across her face. There was nothing particularly remarkable about either of them, except that their clothing didn't quite seem to fit in with that of the people around them.

Aside from that, of course, they were filmed because they were interrupting an interview. Bester used his well-trained mind to think back, and he believed he'd received a mental flash of the girl, at least, on his last trip to the station. One of the things often at the forefront of a person's mind was their own self-image, and it was likely he'd caught that once before being blocked. These might be two of the four strange consciousnesses he'd sensed.

His suspicions seemed to be confirmed when Mr. Garibaldi followed the two kids somewhere. Giving a signal, Bester watched the subsequent conclusion, filmed after Garibaldi had returned. Something had clearly changed, and he needed to know what.

Unfortunately, by the time he managed to get back to the station, the kids were long gone. No one seemed able to tell him how they'd left or where they had gone. All he could really find out for certain was the day they'd vanished. With the command staff uncooperative, as usual, and Lyta blocking his ability whenever he was let out of the brig, Bester knew he was unlikely to find out any more. He was immensely frustrated.

The capstone of his fruitless visit occurred when Mr. Garibaldi paid him a visit. Bester had been preparing to leave when the door opened. He was actually somewhat surprised to find his tool standing there. He was even more surprised to find that he couldn't get a very good grasp on Garibaldi's mind, even though he was sure Lyta was nowhere near. Bester could sense Garibaldi and catch fragments of what he was thinking, but it felt as though his thoughts were somehow slipping past the other man's. He covered for his discomfiture as well as he could.

"I didn't think you were allowed in areas like this anymore," Bester remarked calmly as Garibaldi stepped in and allowed the door to shut behind him.

"I still have friends," Garibaldi shrugged. "Old and new. And I know what you did to my brain." He drew a disruptor. Bester gazed at it without fear, although he paused to wonder whether Garibaldi's nameless "friends" had managed to shut off the security cameras in this room.

"Really, Mr. Garibaldi, do we have to be so dramatic?" he asked, deliberately turning his back to show his unconcern. After all, he'd known that Garibaldi would figure things out eventually. Granted, this was somewhat sooner than he'd expected, but it wouldn't do to admit that. "Did you honestly believe that I would tamper with you without taking steps to protect myself?"

"On the contrary, I know you did." The confidence in Garibaldi's voice brought Bester up short. "You see, some of those new friends I mentioned found your commands and removed them."

"Removed?" Bester's mind was working frantically now. Lyta? He suspected that she was capable, if Garibaldi had managed to convince her to do it.

"Well, maybe removed isn't quite the right word," Garibaldi conceded. "I know what you put there, but it has no effect on me anymore. Pretty useful, actually, since I now know what you were planning to do. More importantly, though, it means I can do anything I want to _you_." Just as Garibaldi spoke those words, Bester finally got full access to his mind. He searched frantically for his barrier, but it wasn't there. Furthermore, his implanted compulsions were reduced to fragments, ineffectual. The last thing he got was that Garibaldi had no doubts that he could succeed. Bester turned around just in time to see Garibaldi's finger pull the trigger.

Bester froze. Nothing happened.

That was not precisely true, Bester realized when his heart started pumping again. A thin rod now extended out of the muzzle of the disruptor, bearing a flag. On the flag was printed, in large letters, a single word: BANG.

Meanwhile, Garibaldi was doubled over with laughter. He wiped a tear from his eye as he held up the phony disruptor.

"Man, you just can't beat the classics," he declared. "This is great, right?"

"Yes, very amusing, Mr. Garibaldi," Bester said bitterly. He did not find it particularly funny, but he wasn't about to give a mundane the satisfaction of knowing how much he was rattled. That is, if it wasn't already obvious.

"The best part is, it would have worked even if I hadn't fixed the problem you gave me," Garibaldi went on, stowing the rod back inside the false weapon. "Letting you see I was telling the truth before I pulled the trigger was just icing on the cake."

"You could have killed me," commented Bester, still having trouble figuring out why he hadn't.

"Believe me, I thought about that. I was encouraged to reconsider. After all, you might still be useful to Sheridan. Besides, I honestly think your expression a minute ago was better than the satisfaction of killing you. And murder, even of someone as unpopular as you, would lead to all sorts of questions and interrogations that might get in the way of my business. It's not worth the trouble."

Bester wasn't sure what bothered him more – that Garibaldi had found a way around all of Bester's painstaking work or that he didn't consider Bester worth the effort to get rid of. The Psi Cop wanted very much to ask how he'd been cured, but he couldn't bring himself to show that level of weakness.

"So what happens now?" he asked instead.

"I think we're done here," Garibaldi shrugged. "Have a nice life. With any luck at all, I'll never have to see you again." With that, he let himself out. Only after he had left did Bester allow himself to bang on the wall in impotent frustration. All of his plans were going up in smoke.

He shared Garibaldi's hope that they wouldn't meet again, but as recent events had shown, Bester had no luck. None at all.

--

Author's Note: I always wanted Bester to get his comeuppance. The story is done, and I am going to take a break from this world, probably for several months. Although I've always intended to do a third part of the trilogy, I want to make sure I have a clear outline before I start it. I hope you've enjoyed it and that many of you will still be watching when I come back to this.

Review responses:

Samael3: Yes, you bring up many of the points I've been thinking about. The next installment could be understandably epic, which is the reason I want to give myself plenty of time to plot it out.

Andromedanaea: Thanks for the heads up on the name change. That does confuse me sometimes. I'm glad you enjoyed the story.

HarryPotter'sgirl17: Well, men are always more eloquent in prose than in real life, although I do make an effort to make it sound realistic. Ultimately, it's the intent that counts.

rahyne: Well, you got it! I've had this scene in mind for months.

Olaf74: Really, you are too kind. I will let my ideas for the continuation percolate for a while.

Isis the Sphinx: I will be writing, but not in this universe for a while.


End file.
